


Connections

by Sophie3



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Naruto
Genre: BAMF Harry, Broken Uchihas, Canon-Typical Violence, Communication Failure, Creepy Kakashi, Crossover, Death Eaters, Different Worlds, Domestic, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, F/M, Family, Gen, M/M, Magic, Multi, Naruto Just Wants Everyone to Get-Along, Ninjas Being Ninjas, Other, Overprotective, Ramen, Sakura is the Only One With Any Sense, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-28 03:06:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 127,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophie3/pseuds/Sophie3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the kind of stupid crazy thing that would happen in one of ero-sensei’s novels. But this Potter kid was Sasuke’s family, which made him Team 7 family and there was no way in hell they were going to let any murdering brother take that away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Finding Connections - 7 Days Before

**Author's Note:**

> Potential Spoilers!:
> 
> I started writing this without having seen the Shippuden episodes of Naruto. I've now seen only the first few, but I'd already written the beginning of this and am not going to go back and change things. There shouldn't be any spoliers from that point. Lots of things are not consistent with Shippuden, however some minor things may find their way in. 
> 
> Please do not tell me how I've gotten something wrong based on the Shippuden episodes or ask me how I'm going to work in key details. I've had parts of the series spoiled for me this way.
> 
> Since I don't know anything beyond the first few big fights of the Shippuden episodes, I've made a bunch of junk up to fit my convenience. This fic assumes that yes, indeed, Sasuke's butt will get dragged back to Konoha at some point. And that he'll more or less go along with it. Team 7 is approximately 16 here.
> 
> This is also set up to take place after book 5 of HP for plot reasons. Tidbits of book 6 and 7 might pop up, but for the most part I ignore them.
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings!: Naruto likes to curse. Big surprise. Some of the other characters might join in from time to time. There are also no planned pairings at this point, other than hints at Remus/Tonks, but things might pop up if you squint and stare at it sideways. Lots of things are implied. Make of that what you will.
> 
>  
> 
> I love feedback! Especially the kind that gives me a hint of what's good and what's bad. It helps me write better for the next chapter – hint hint. Let me know if this is moving too fast, or too slow, or if somebody's terribly OOC. I will attempt to fix it for your reading pleasure.
> 
> I have part one and most of part two of this series done. I plan on there being three parts.

* * *

 

Uchiha Sasuke’s eyes snapped open.  The sharingan activated not a minute afterward.  He stared up at the ceiling of the guest room of the house that had once been his parents’.  _Something_ had awoken him in the middle of the night and it was not another nightmare this time.  He had been living in his parents’ old house for almost a week now.  He had adjusted to the constant reminders of why he was alive, why his family was not, and the revenge he owed them.  Living in his parents’ home once again after the three years away with Orochimaru was fitting.  He had been training to become stronger, but now that he had learned all that he could from the sannin, it was only right that he return to this place.  And after a week, the shock of it had faded some what.  He could turn a corner without being assaulted with violent memories.  He was adjusting.

But _something_ had awoken him.

He slid out of bed and into a crouch without even rustling the bedding.  A kunai was in one hand and the other was reaching for his weapons pouch.  He had wards set up encompassing the entire grounds as well as the house itself.  To slip pass all of his traps…if it was only Naruto on one of his pranks, Sasuke really would kill him this time – because if it was not…

Sasuke moved around his futon and to the door. Silently, he slid it back just far enough for him to slip through out into the hallway.  Right side floor planks always creaked terribly, so he kept to the left, stepping lightly down the hallway.  The kitchen behind him was empty, so he ignored it.  Across the hall was the front room, the one where his father would receive guests and conduct other clan business.  It was empty as well.  So was the sitting room connected to it, and _his_ old bedroom across the hall.  Sasuke ghosted along the left-hand wall.  His own former bedroom was just a little farther down, beside his parents’ room and across from his Father’s study.  Which was not empty.

Sasuke paused.  His father’s study.  It was the only room he had not cleared out yet.  Everything else he had merely packed up and either put in storage or disposed of, but he had left his father’s study.  There were things in there that he would have to sort through slowly.  While he had read most of his father’s books, he had never sorted through the copious amount of paperwork and records his father had kept.  How foolish.  He should have done something with it all long before, and now whatever was in there was compromised.

Furious, Sasuke stepped forward, one hand braced on the door and shoved it aside with a deafening _crack!_ and stared into a pair of red eyes that nearly matched his own.

 

* * *

 

Someone was pounding on the door.  The sun hadn’t even risen and someone was pounding on his door.  Uzumaki Naruto growled before rolling over and burrowing his head under his pillow.  Sleep was _gooood_ , sleep was important.  He’d need sleep to be ready to beat the living shit out of Sasuke when they sparred in the morning.  Whatever it was could wait till after that.  After that and ramen. 

Damnit.  Now he was hungry.

The door-pounding stopped and with a little content smile, Naruto began to drift happily back to sleep.  Then the Naruto-pounding started.  With a yelp, Naruto covered his head and tried to roll away only to smash his nose into the wall.

“Get up!” Sakura shouted.  But it wasn’t the usual Sakura ‘I’m-so-annoyed-with-you-right-now’ shout.  It was the ‘I’m-trying-not-to-be-scared’ Sakura shout and there were few things in the world that could wake Naruto up faster than that.  He sat up, blue eyes clear and focused.

“What happened?”

She moved away from his bedside immediately so that he could scramble out of it.  He kept glancing at her as he snagged his weapon pouches up off of the floor then shrugged on his favorite orange and black jacket.  His black pajama pants would have to do for now.

Sakura was already fully dressed.  She had her feet spread shoulder width apart and her fists resting on her hips, confident and completely ready to act despite the deep frown lines and pinched look to her eyes.  This was not good.

“Sasuke?” he asked quietly.  It’s been six months since they’d dragged him more or less willingly home.  He, Sakura and Kakashi-sensei.  Cause they were Team 7, and only the lowliest of the low abandons a teammate.  Even if said teammate might prefer to be abandoned.  Even if said teammate might just run off again, chasing snake-bastards, fratricidal brothers and just generally being an idiot.

Sakura just nodded mutely.

Naruto cursed.  He should have known.  Tsunade-ba-chan had ordered Sasuke under house arrest for six months after his return, said house being Kakashi’s apartment.  That had ended barely a week ago.  Naruto had offered to let Sasuke move in with him, and after that had been shot down Sakura had offered to help him find a nice apartment, but no, Sasuke-teme wanted to move back into his creepy haunted house.  Sakura had told him he ought to be understanding of Sasuke’s choice.  Kakashi just pretended to ignore everything.  Sasuke _did_ ignore everything.  So Naruto just made sure his loud cheerful self was over there every day to bug the heck out of the ice-bastard.

Looks like it didn’t do any good, however.  Sasuke-teme still left.  Ran off again chasing some stupid idea on how to become powerful and strong all on his own and not staying in Konoha to become powerful and strong with him and Sakura the way he should. 

“Alright,” he said as he pulled on his shoes.  “Well, we’ll just have to go find his dumb-ass again, and then we’ll just drag his dumb-ass back home again.  But this time I get to tie him up and make him stay.  No more of this living alone in that creepy house with only a bunch of ghosts for company.  This time I ain’t letting him outta my sight until his bastard-ass gets it through _his_ thick skull that there ain’t nothing out there worth doing this.”

He could have kept going about the bastardish nature of their fellow teammate and how much more of a dumb-ass Sasuke was, especially with the way Sakura was staring at him wide-eyed, but then Sakura finally interrupted him.  “He didn’t leave, Naruto.”

“Huh?” he replied rather ineloquently, frozen with one foot out the door.

“He’s in the hospital.”  Sakura’s voice waved only slightly as she said it.  Barely noticeable, really.

“Huh?”

She made a little half growling, half huffing sound that was pure Sakura.  “Oh, just hurry up and come on, I’ll explain it as we move.”  And then she was brushing by him and he had to scramble to catch up.

“Hospital?” he repeated back as they jumped from his building to the one next to it.  “What the hell?”

“ANBU brought him in.  Missing-nin managed to get all the way to the Uchiha compound before anyone noticed.  One guess who.”

Naruto’s footing slipped.  Itachi?  _In_ Konoha?  One hand crept down to rest over his stomach and the seal there.  But Itachi certainly hadn’t been here looking for him and the Kyuubi.  “Damnit!” Naruto hissed.  It would have been better if he had.  Yeah, he probably wouldn’t have been able to defend himself against somebody like Itachi, but at least then maybe the bastard would have left Sasuke alone.  “Damnit!”

“I know,” Sakura replied.  “But he’s not dead.  He’s not dead.”

Naruto scowled but nodded.  “Right.  Not dead.”

 

* * *

 

Sasuke’s eyes snapped opened.  The sharingan activated not a minute afterward.  He also released it almost as fast.  It _hurt_.  Chakra exhaustion.  It was a state he was familiar enough with to recognize immediately.

He had failed to kill his brother.  Again.  And again his brother had spared him.  He would have cursed or slammed his fist against something like one of his teammates, but he rarely did such things, and certainly not in a public place like a hospital.

“But I dun wanna eat vegetables…”

Sasuke blinked, then turned his head slowly to stare at the orange blob off to his right.  He blinked again and the image focused into Naruto slumped over in one of those rickety hospital chairs, absolutely sound asleep and apparently dreaming about fighting off vegetables.

Sasuke almost smirked at it. Naruto always talked in his sleep.  Ever since they were little.  It was an interesting way to occasionally get information out of him.  Sometime he let slip things in his sleep that he would never admit to awake.  His fear of vegetables, however, was a well known fact.  Sakura had enlisted Sasuke in her quest to force Naruto into two servings a day.  It was sort of entertaining coming up with new ways to trick Naruto into eating them.  Some of their plans had been quite elaborate.  And Naruto always took it as a challenge.

“Wake up, dobe.”

Naruto snorted, tried to roll over in his chair and ended up rolling off of it onto the floor.  There was a dull _thunk_.  “Sasuke-teme?” a muffled voice replied.

“Get up here, dobe, and tell me what the hell happened.”

Naruto’s yellow mop of hair popped up over the side of Sasuke’s hospital bed.  “You’re awake.”

Sasuke forewent the sarcastic reply.  “What happened?  Where is Itachi?”

Naruto flinched and Sasuke scowled at him.  “Um, not here,” he finally replied.

“ _Where?_ ”

Naruto scowled and looked away.  “Dunno.  ANBU guys chased him beyond the village walls.  Lost him after that.”  He turned back to stare at Sasuke.  “You okay?”

Sasuke ignored him.  “I remember ANBU finally arriving.”

“They said you were both pretty worn out by then,” Naruto winced.  “And the outside of the house is really torn up.  House ain’t too bad though, mostly just the grass and stuff outside.”

Like he cared about the stupid house.

Naruto shrugged.  “The ANBU guys ganged up on him, but he didn’t stick around or anything.  Took off running once they showed up.”

Sasuke closed his eyes.  His fists were clenched and he still had to struggle to keep in the impulse to break something.  “He got what he came for,” Sasuke hissed.

“Huh?”

Sasuke slowly opened his eyes just enough so that he could see Naruto.  The other young man was standing alongside Sasuke’s bed, his hands fisted over the bed sheets at the edge.  Sasuke closed his eyes again.  “He was in my father’s study.”  Naruto had been helping him clean enough that he ought to know what his father’s study looked like, how much was in that one room.

“Do you know what he was looking for?”

“No,” Sasuke replied.  Now he had a whole new collection of fresh memories for that house.  The image of Itachi rifling carelessly through his father’s things, completely unconcerned with the history of that place or Sasuke standing in the doorway.  The sight of new kunai buried deep into the walls.  The burn mark down the hall that Sasuke made.  The burn mark in the foyer that Itachi made.  The sight of Itachi standing in the street under the moonlight once again.  “But I know where he was looking.  Which part of the study.”  Sasuke unclenched his fists and started to push himself up.  Something was wrong with his right arm, but not enough to stop him.  The wave of dizziness and sharp pain in his chest was more difficult to ignore.

“Stop being stupid, teme,” Naruto growled out.  “Tell me where and I’ll go look.”

Sasuke shook his head slowly.  “I know-”

“And you can tell me where and me and Kakashi-sensei will go look.”

Sasuke blinked and turned to stare at him.  “Kakashi?”

Naruto smiled that stupid smile he always did.  “Yep!  He’s just outside the room.  Sakura’ll be right back and she can check you over and make sure you ain’t broken any more and Kakashi-sensei and I can go check while she’s doing that cause I’ve been in there before and Kakashi-sensei’s good at figuring out stuff and by the time Sakura’s done will be back and tell ya what we found, hm?”

Sasuke stared at him for a moment, trying to picture Naruto combing through his father’s things.  There was something not right about that.  There ought to be something not right about that.  But it was Naruto, and he did not belong anywhere but that had never stopped him before.  Naruto knew how important this was.  He would not mess this up.  That was not his ninja way, after all. 

“Alright,” Sasuke replied, and after quickly explaining to Naruto roughly where Itachi had been looking, he lay back down and closed his eyes.

 

* * *

 

Kakashi-sensei was waiting exactly where Naruto had last seen him waiting hours before.  He was leaning against the wall beside Sasuke’s door, arms crossed and familiar orange book out in one hand.  The rest of the hallway was empty except for him.

Tsunade-ba-chan herself had examined Sasuke’s injuries and pronounced him not dead as well.  After that she’d left for some kind of meeting about what to do about evil missing-nin popping up in the village and had dragged Sakura out with her.  Which was probably a good thing.  Sakura tended to worry.  Especially when it came to Sasuke.  Besides, Kakashi-sensei and Naruto could handle this.

Naruto grinned.  “Oi!  Kakashi-sensei!”

“I’m standing right here, Naruto.  There’s no reason to shout.”

“Bah!” Naruto replied with a cheeky grin he knew his teacher had to see even if the other man was pretending to ignore him.  “Come on, we got work to do,” he said before turning around and strutting off, hands folded behind his head.  It wasn’t often that he knew something that Kakashi-sensei didn’t, and if Kakashi-sensei wanted him to share what their super-important mission was, then the other man was going to just have to keep up.  The very idea made Naruto cackle to himself.

There was silent behind him, then a very distinct sigh and the sound of something being put away.  A moment latter Kakashi-sensei was walking along side him.  Naruto glanced over at him out of the corner of his eye and Kakashi-sensei rolled his one visible eye.  “I was listening, you know,” he replied quietly.

Naruto laughed a little.  “Guess I should have known you would,” he grumbled. 

“Hmm,” Kakashi-sensei replied.

So much for having the upper hand for once.  He’d just have to find some way to pull a prank on Kakashi-sensei later to make up for it.  He’d have to get Sakura and Sasuke or Iruka-sensei to help him, though, cause pranking Kakashi-sensei always required backup. 

Once they stepped out into the late morning sunshine, neither of them wasted any time in moving off to the Uchiha district.  It might be great that Sasuke was neither dead nor doing something stupid, but that didn’t mean that this whole things wasn’t very important Team 7 business and village business. 

The old head Uchiha family house really did look like a small tornado had hit it.  The street just outside of it was all torn up, with crumbled walls surrounding it and deep gouges running from one end to the other.  Even the little half-dead decorative bushes and tiny plots of grass out front were all dug up.  Naruto and Sasuke had spent the better part of an afternoon cleaning up those plants when Sasuke had first moved back in.  Something about making the place at least look presentable before taking up residence there again.  It had actually been kind of nice doing something mindless and not life-threatening with Sasuke once again, just the two of them working together quietly outside in the nice sunshine.  And Sakura had brought them dinner and cold drinks after she got off work.  The three of them had sat inside the still kind of stuffy kitchen and pretended like nothing bad had ever happened there.

Naruto still thought Sasuke moving back into that place was a Bad Idea, but who was he to tell the class genius what to do?

“Where did it start?” Kakashi-sensei asked once they stood outside the front door.

Naruto shook his head to clear it, then moved into the house.  “Old man’s study.  Itachi must have been looking for something when Sasuke barged in.”

Kakashi-sensei just nodded and followed him.

The hallway didn’t look much better than outside did.  There were some distinct burn marks and gouges along the walls and floor.  Naruto just walked by them and tried not to connect any of his own memories to such things.

The study was almost all the way at the end of the hallway.  Sasuke had shown it to him once, explained that he was going to wait to do that one last and that he wouldn’t need any help.  Naruto had still offer to cart out boxes for him.  He might not know what papers were important and which ones were not, but he could find something useful to do.  Sasuke hadn’t said much in reply. 

The room was a lot messier than Naruto remembered, but at least there were no burn marks in here, just some stray kunai and shuriken.  With as many books and scrolls and papers lying about as there were, one little spark probably would have brunt the whole house down.

Uchiha senior was obviously one of those guys that liked everything in its place, cause there hadn’t been one messy stack of papers the first time Naruto had seen this room.  Everything had been lined up perfectly, even the scrolls and books that filled the shelves.  Most of the room was same way, but some things had obviously been knocked over and thrown about.  It was kind of hard to tell if any of the mess had been intentional or not.

“Left-hand side of the desk, bottom drawer, left-hand side of the desk, bottom drawer…”  Naruto repeated.  Kakashi snorted quietly, but Naruto ignored him.  He’d been repeating it over and over again in his head ever since Sasuke had told him.  Stepping carefully around the papers spread out over the floor – Sasuke would kill him if he messed up anything – Naruto slipped around the desk.  The bottom drawer was still open.  Naruto smirked.  Bingo.

Naruto crouched down and stared at its contents.  A couple of scrolls, an old tattered book, and a collection of loose papers.  All of them with the Uchiha mon on them. Naruto reached in and pulled the bunch of them out and dropped them on the table top. 

Kakashi-sensei moved away from the doorway then to join him.  “This it?”

Naruto nodded, then paused.  “Well, it’s all I can see right away, I guess.  Wouldn’t put it beyond the guy to have some kind of hidden latch in there.”

“We’ll start with this,” Kakashi-sensei replied.  He reached out and poked each of the scrolls with one long finger.  “These are both still rolled up.  If he was looking for something, was in a rush and was interrupted, it would make sense that he wouldn’t have taken the time to re-roll them.”

“But if there was a third, he could have just taken it with him or burnt it or something,” Naruto added.

Kakashi-sensei nodded.  “Of course.  But again, let’s start with what we have.  We’ll move on after that.”

“Right.”  Naruto snatched up the book and started thumbing through it.  It looked like some kind of scrapbook or some sort of thing.  Huh.  Go figure.  Most of it had written notes in it, name and dates, sometime bits and pieces of information.  There were even a few pictures carefully attached to blank pages.  “Hey, are all these people related to Sasuke?” he asked.

Kakashi-sensei didn’t glance up from the papers he was sifting through.  “It would appear these are all clan records.”

“Guess so.  Some of these dates are pretty old.”  Naruto paused to stare at a picture of a genin team made up of what looked like only Uchihas.  Written underneath were three names, each with two dates written beside them.  The latter dates were all the same, and not that long after the first.  That didn’t sound good.  He quickly flipped to another page.  There were even some official documents in there, that or copies of them.  Letters of recognition, letters of discharge, even a couple of newspaper clippings.

He kept flipping through it.  There didn’t seem to be anything really useful about information about a bunch of dead people, but it was kind of interesting to hold Uchiha history in his hands.  Besides, he didn’t have any better ideas than waiting for Kakashi-sensei to figure out what they were looking for. 

Towards the end of the book, however, the steady flow of page after page seemed off.  Naruto frowned and flipped back to check it.  “There’s a page missing.”  Kakashi-sensei stopped what he was doing and looked up.  Naruto glanced over at him then smiled sheepishly.  “See?” he said as he held out the book for the older man to see.  “You can see the torn part in the middle.”

Without a word Kakashi-sensei reached out and took the book from him.  “These entries are recent,” he announced quietly.  “About thirty or so years ago.”

“Before the massacre?” Naruto asked.  It was kind of hard to imagine a time before then.

Kakashi-sensei glanced up long enough to glare at him.  “If it was made long before Itachi was even born, then yes, it would stand to reason before the massacre.”

“I knew that,” Naruto snapped back.  “I was just thinking out loud, you know?”

Kakashi-sensei stared at him for a moment longer, then went back to studying the book. He flipped a few pages back, then several forward.  “All of these people are recorded as dead.  There’s no entries about anyone who could have still been alive for the massacre.”

“So it hasn’t been updated lately?”

“No, there are entries up until the massacre, but all have a death date.  Which makes sense.  Keeping any information about living nin so openly comes with a risk.”

“So why would Itachi care about some people who where already dead before he went all crazy?”

Kakashi-sensei stared silently at the pages on either side of the one missing.  Naruto tried to wait patiently.  He stared at the outside of the book.  Then he stared at the pages on the desk.  Then he stared at the stuff on the wall to the right.  Just as he was about to give up and sit down to wait, Kakashi-sensei changed.  His one visible eye narrowed _very_ slowly.  That was not good.

“What is it?” Naruto demanded.  “What’s the bastard planning?  Is it some kind of twisted zombie move or something?  Or maybe he and Sasuke aren’t really related.  Or maybe -”

“There may have been a Uchiha he didn’t kill.”

Naruto stared at his teacher.  “Um, yeah.  His name’s Sasuke.”

That narrowed eye shifted up from the page and something in Naruto shriveled up a little under its gaze.

“Sasuke might have a cousin.”

Naruto had to sit down after that, to hell with not damaging anything.  “A cousin?” he repeated.  “Like his father’s sister’s kid or his mother’s brother’s -”

“His father’s handicapped brother, if I’m reading the right.”

Naruto frowned.  That just didn’t make any sense.  It was the kind of stupid crazy thing that would happen in one of ero-sensei’s novels.  The long lost brother of such and such.  “How would Itachi not know about this?”

“The dates here indicate that there was significant damage to his eyes as an infant.  Degenerative.  The medical nin’s expected him to be completely blind before the age of ten.  No hope of the sharingan whatsoever.  It’s little wonder no one spoke of it.  Part of the medical file is included here,” Kakashi-sensei explained before turning the book so that Naruto could see.

Naruto shook his head again.  “But then where was he when – you know – everything happened?”

Kakashi-sensei turned the book back around and flipped the page.  “There’s an official adoption paper in here.”

“What?  Let me see!”  Naruto jumped up and leaned over to see himself.  Sure enough, that’s what it looked like.  It was really weird looking though, like it was written in some kind of code, with a seal he’d never seen before on it.  But there were blanks for people’s names and for dates and lots of signatures and even another seal down in the corner with two big people holding the hands of a little person.

Naruto glanced up at Kakashi-sensei.  “Can you read it?”

Kakashi-sensei had pushed back his headband at some point and both of his eyes were shifting rapidly back and forth across the page.  “Some of it,” he finally replied.  “I’ve seen examples of it before, but not enough to learn the entire language.  It’s not code.  It’s one of the outer countries’ languages.”

Naruto shifted back so that he wasn’t stretched out all awkwardly trying to see the book from across the desk.  He stared at the mess left behind for a moment.  “So you really think this means that Sasuke’s uncle’s still alive or that he might have cousins somewhere?”

Kakashi-sensei looked up.  “It’s possible.  Considering Itachi’s interest, it’s certainly possible.  There’s a death date here for the Uncle, but there’s also a note that he had married a few years before that.  Most people have kids once they get married.  Which makes one or more cousin’s a distinct possibility.”

Naruto scowled.  “But why now?  Why didn’t Itachi check for this earlier?  He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to make mistakes.”

Kakashi-sensei shrugged.  “Who knows?  We don’t know exactly what that page said.  And everyone makes mistakes.”  Kakashi-sensei grinned a little when he said that last piece, kind of like the way a guard dog smirks right before tearing a chunk out of you, like he had no problem making somebody else dead when they made such mistakes.

Naruto grinned back before returning to the more immediate problem.  “So what’d we tell Sasuke?”

 

* * *

 

“A cousin.”

“Yes, it’s a possibility.”

“A hitherto unknown cousin from a forgotten blind uncle that left the country some thirty years ago for some place that is not even on the map.”

“Yes.”

Kakashi was making that ridiculous grinning face that made Sasuke want to deck him.  Which Kakashi knew.  Which was why he made that face to begin with.  But none of that changed the fact that the man was suggesting Sasuke had a _cousin_ of all things.

Finding out that Orochimaru wanted to repent seemed more likely.

“And how have I never heard of this before?” Sasuke replied as calmly as he could manage.  He was still confined to a hospital bed despite his protests.  Sakura had learned long ago how to ignore him, and would not be beyond breaking some more ribs if that was what it took to keep him where she wanted him.  She had not left his side since he had woken up for the second time.  The restriction was making it even more difficult to control his temper, and the constant lack of privacy was becoming increasingly annoying.

“Kakashi-sensei and I got that all figured out!” Naruto replied immediately.  He flipped out the worn volume that they had returned with and waved it about.  “See, we figure it must have been real embarrassing for your dad and granddad for your uncle to be blind and everything, so they didn’t ever talk about him.  And this page here, see, we think that’s some kind of adoption thing cause it sure looks like one and Kakashi-sensei can read a little of it and he thinks so to, so yeah.  It all makes sense, actually.”

It really should not.  All of this seemed very against everything he had known about his clan.  Degenerative eye disease?  That kind of thing happened only to other people.  Adoption paper from a distant country?  He could not even read the document Naruto had shown him.  Besides which, how would his infant uncle have found his way out to such a distant place?  He had never even _heard_ of anyone going to or coming from such foreign places.  He had heard a handful of tales way out on the edge of known civilization of other places, other civilizations with no nin, no chakra.  Places filled with strange languages and super machines that fought in the place of people.  It all had sounded very ridiculous.  He had dismissed it all – and now this.

“A cousin.”

“It’s the best explanation possible,” Kakashi said quietly.

Sasuke shook his head.  “It is just not possible.”

“Sure it is,” Naruto repeated.  “We’ve got it all right here, see-”

“That does not prove anything, you imbecile!”

“Sasuke-” Sakura reached out from beside him as if to touch him on the arm but he folded them across his chest before she had the chance to.

“It is just not possible,” he repeated harshly.  For a moment no one said anything.  Sasuke glared down at the sheets and the other three did that _thing_.  It was the thing where they would all take turns looking at each other, talking about him without even having to say a word.  They had been doing it ever since he had come back.

“Just go the fuck away,” he hissed out.  He could not deal with this right now.  He needed to think.  Needed to plan.  Needed to go over and over this latest fight with that man and analyze it.  He obviously still was not strong enough.  He had improved, but so had Itachi.  Sasuke was not doing enough, clearly.  He needed a better plan.

“And if you do have a cousin?” Kakashi demanded.  He held up his hands quickly when Sasuke turned to glare at him.  “Let’s just assume there’s a remote possibility.  What do you think your brother will do with such knowledge?”

“Kill him, of course,” Sasuke replied and as soon as he said it, he knew exactly what Kakashi meant.  If this cousin existed, then Itachi would see to it that he would not for much longer.  Itachi would finish what he started all those years ago and destroy everyone else in the clan.  And there was a chance that Sasuke could stop him.

He had the covers thrown back and his feet swung over before Sakura managed to react.  Within a second, however, she was holding him down with a hand on each shoulder and a fierce look in her eyes.  “No way.  Not yet.”

“You do not understand-”

“You’re going to have to wait, Sasuke,” Kakashi interrupted.

Sasuke jerked around to glare at him.  “Do you think Itachi will wait?”

“No, but we don’t know where we’re going yet,” Naruto answered.  His jaw was set and his eyes focused determinedly down at the book he held in his lap.

Sasuke relaxed slightly.  He was right.  They would not be able to leave immediately, but they would have to leave very soon if they hoped to intersect Itachi.

“Let me study that document some,” Kakashi said.  He stepped over to take the book from Naruto but did not glance away from Sasuke.  “I’ve seen some of this language before, and I know someone who might know a bit more of it.  Hopefully we can get a starting location from this.”

Naruto groaned suddenly.  “We’re all going to have to learn that funny language, aren’t we?”  Naruto caught Sasuke staring at him and grinned like an idiot.  “After all, we’re coming with you right?  Nothing like Team 7 for a rescue mission!  Though maybe I’ll leave the funny blocky language to you and Sakura…”

Sasuke stopped listening.  The four of them together would stand a better chance of being able to find and rescue this mysterious cousin – if Itachi had not already killed him.


	2. Finding Connections - 6 Days Before

* * *

“Sasuke-”

            “Move.”

            “Sasuke-kun!”

            “I can stand up on my own,” Sasuke growled out.

            Sakura stared back him just as stubbornly as he was glaring at her.  She could tell he hadn’t slept well last night, and most of what was wrong with him couldn’t be rushed to heal.  He needed good sleep and not to be up on his feet yet.  Trying to convince him of that was like trying to get Kakashi-sensei to stop reading his books.

            Sasuke had managed to leverage himself out of bed most of the way before she’d been able to stop him.  She had him stuck leaning against the hospital bed, feet on the floor but weight rested mostly still on the mattress.  It didn’t escape her notice that he was favoring both his arm and his side.  She, Tsunade-sama and the other medic-nins had repaired most of the damage.  The broken arm bone had been repaired, and the crack ribs both internally and externally supported, but there was only so much they could do.  The real healing had to be done naturally, and until then, Sasuke was going to need rest.

            “I can stand,” Sasuke repeated.  He had his teeth clenched, but she didn’t think it was from any kind of pain.  He really was just that frustrated. And she couldn’t really blame him.  _She_ was still trying to adjust to the idea that Sasuke might have another living relative other than his murderous brother – she couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be for him.

            “There’s no point for you to be standing yet,” she snapped back.  Just because she might understand why he was so anxious to get out of there didn’t mean she was going to let him.  This was for his own good, after all.  “We’re still waiting on Kakashi-sensei’s contact.  Until he gets here, there isn’t anything you can do – other than stand in bed like Tsunade-sama _ordered_ you to.”

            Sasuke’s eyes narrowed slowly, but Sakura was immune to that now.  Let him glare all he wanted to.  She was one medic-nin that he wasn’t going to bully around.  They stayed like that, glaring at each other, until something crashed down the hall.

            “….sorry!  sorry!  Opps!  Um, hehhe, excuse me, old lady!...”

            Sakura and Sasuke both dropped their tense stances.  Naruto.  With a sigh, Sakura stepped away and headed towards the door.  Sasuke slipped the kunai back to wherever he had it hidden and leaned back to sit more firmly on the bed.  At least he wasn’t trying to make a break for it while Naruto had her distracted.

            Sakura slid open the door and stuck her head out into the hallway.  At the other end was an overturned medicine cart surrounded by small cups and pills scattered all over the floor.  The near by elderly nurse was just staring at the mess, wide-eyed and silent.  Naruto was crouched over, trying to shove the pills back into different cups, completely mindless of the fact that each one was carefully and specifically filled.

            “Naruto,” Sakura growled lowly.

            He apparently heard her even from the other end of the hall.  His shoulders visibly tensed and he slowly turned around to face her.  He looked a little ill.  “Hehe, Hi! Sakura-chan!” he called out, dropping one of his hastily refilled cups to wave at her.

            That seemed to be enough to break the other nurse out of her shock and she was suddenly moving, clipboard in hand, and beating Naruto on top of the head with it.  “Stupid!  Stupid!  Stupid boy!” she yelled at him before giving him a swift kick to the behind that sent Naruto scrambling to get away from her.  “Look what you’ve done!  Clumsy stupid boy!  Go!  Get!  Why I ought to…”

            “Naruto!” Sakura called out sharply.  “Get down here!”

            “Haruno-san!  Do something with this boy!”

            “Naruto, get over here right now!”

            It didn’t take any more encouragement than that.  Naruto covered the distance from one end of the hall to where Sakura was immediately.  Sakura grabbed him by the collar of his orange jacket and yanked him through the door before slamming it shut.  “Naruto,” she hissed.  “How is it you can still be so clumsy?”

            “Sakura-chan!” he whined.  He had one hand rubbing his beaten head and another ineloquently doing the same to his sore behind.

            Sasuke snorted.  “Dobe,” he said quietly, but it ended the discussion.

            Naruto stood up straight and folded his hands behind his head before grinning wildly at Sasuke.  “How ya feeling, teme?”

            “Fine,” Sasuke snapped back as he glared at Sakura.  Sakura just glared back at him.

            “Then why aren’t ya dressed?” Naruto continued.

            Sakura nearly pounded him right then and there.  But a medic-nin was not supposed to do such things within the hospital.  Not unless it was justly deserved.  Which it probably was.  But Sakura had promised not to do so, at least not as much.

            “She will not let me!” Sasuke replied.

            Sakura huffed and glared at both of them now.  Really.  Must she always be the grown up one out of the three of them?

            Naruto smirked.  “But our translator’s here.”

            Both Sakura and Sasuke stared at him.  Then Sasuke cursed and shoved himself out of bed and towards his clothes and Sakura let him. 

            She turned away, however, as he got dressed.  Out of the corner of her eye she could see Naruto do the same, except he gave her a cheeky grin that suggested he was thinking about all kinds of dirty jokes he could be making.  Sakura reached over and thwapped him upside the head without turning her head at all.

            “Come on,” Sasuke said and there was the sound of the window being pulled open.  It was frowned upon to leave in such a way from the hospital.  It wasn’t polite and it often meant extra paperwork for the nurses when a patient suddenly disappeared, but this was an emergency, after all.

            The Hokage tower was not far from the hospital, and in moments the three of them arrived at the hallway just outside of Tsunade-sama’s office.  Sakura took the lead then, stepping up to the door and knocking in the particular pattern she always did when visiting.

            “Come in.”

            Sakura resisted the urge to glance behind her and instead pushed both doors open and strode in.  Tsunade-sama was sitting behind her desk, hands folded in front of her face and the aged Uchiha book opened before her.  Kakashi-sensei was standing in front of the desk, slouched with his back to them.  Sitting on the corner of Tsunade-sama’s desk was Naruto’s other teacher.

            “Ero-sensei!” Naruto shouted out immediately.

            Sakura’s eyebrow twitched.  She noticed Tsunade-sama’s mouth twitch.  At least she found it entertaining that not only was Naruto’s mentor an unrepentant lecher, but that Naruto made it a point of announcing as much to the world. 

            “Hello, brat,” Jiraiya replied, unconcerned with Naruto’s outburst.  He gave a small lazy wave.  “Now get over here, all of you.”

            Sasuke wasted no time striding forward until he came to a stop directly in front of Tsunade-sama’s desk.  “What leads do we have?” he demanded.

            Sakura bit the inside of her cheek as she watched both Jiraiya and Tsunade-sama stared at him critically.  Neither of them trusted Sasuke a great deal, much less _liked_ him – and his attitude was hardly the kind of respect nin of they caliber demanded.

            Tsunade-sama said nothing, but Jiraiya eventually nodded slowly.  “We have several names and locations.”

            “Really?”  Naruto was quickly by Sasuke’s side, though Sakura noticed that he waited until Jiraiya’s obvious approval before interrupting.  “That one little piece of paper says all that?”

            “Essentially,” Jiraiya explained.  He turned the book around so that the two young men could see it.  Sakura hurried forward so that she could see too.  The official looking document had been carefully attached to the page, and in the small space underneath was a small amount of text that Sakura could read.  Jiraiya started with that.  “This down here is simple enough.  Uchiha Jin, now James Potter, born March 27, died October 31, 1981.  Wife Lily Potter, no birth date, death October 31, 1981.”

            “They died together,” Naruto said quietly.

            “Potter,” Sakura repeated.  She knew she wouldn’t forget it, but it still sounded weird.

            Sasuke said nothing.

            Jiraiya waited a moment, then pointed up to the document above.  “This was a bit more tricky, but the important parts were fairly easy to figure out.  Basically it says that Harold Potter and Elaine Potter of a place called Godric Hollow, adopt one Uchiha Jin, renamed James Potter, on the 15th of March, 1965, in Great Britain.”

            “Huh?” Naruto asked for the three of them.

Jiraiya smirked at him as if he had planned on and was entertained by such a response.  “Great Britain.  It’s a country about halfway around the world from here.”

            “How soon can we leave?”  Sasuke asked quietly.

            Jiraiya grinned and snapped the book shut.  “As soon as you all are ready.  I’ll be with you until the border.  Teach you as much of the language as I can.  You’re going to need it to figure out how to get there, and then to figure out where this Potter family is and if James and Lily Potter had any brats of their own.  Tsunade-hime has already arranged for special transportation scrolls for each of you that will return you immediately to just outside Konoha.”

            Sasuke glanced up him.  “Thank you,” he whispered.

            “Good luck,” Tsunade-sama replied.


	3. Finding Connections - 1 Day Before

* * *

 

            “…Oh, wow, look at that Sakura!...Hey, Sasuke-teme, come check this out!...Um, Kakashi-sensei?  I think I just broke it…”

            Sasuke ignored the noise coming from his teammate and focused on reading the map posted to the wall.  Hours spent stuck with Naruto in the tiny transport called an airplane, confined to a seat and completely _unable_ to do anything productive had numbed him to the annoyance.  Sakura or Kakashi could handle him.  Right now, Sasuke was busy making sense of the many strange symbols used.  The map itself, of course, was _very_ helpful.  With the sharingan he would be able to memorize all of the streets of this large city within moments.  Kakashi would need to look at this as well, and maybe even Sakura.  She was very good at these kinds of things.

            They had no idea where this Godric Hollow was and nothing he had found so far had been helpful.  It must be either a very small village or one that did not wish to be found.  Their only other clue was the adoption paper itself, which must have been issued by some form of organization.  Nothing that elaborate could have come from anything else except a bureaucracy.  As shinobi, they had seen enough paperwork in their lives to recognize it anywhere.

            “Most of the government buildings seem to be focus in this location,” Sasuke announced quietly.  In a moment, Sakura was by his side, peering over his shoulder.  He traced the section with one finger.  They appeared to be large buildings, which might work in their favor.  Easier to slip through a crowded location.  They had no idea what kind of security these people would use.  Nothing so far had indicated that any of these people knew anything of shinobi or chakra, but that did not necessarily mean that they did not.  It did suggest that they must have found other ways to compensate for such a lack.  They had already encountered some of such techniques, and while they were fairly easy for four highly trained shinobi to get around, it did suggest that they could face unexpected and potentially difficult resistance. 

            Sakura studied the map for a moment, then nodded.  She had committed at least some of it to memory.  They both stepped away to let Kakashi have a quick look.  Naruto stared at the poster from behind Kakashi, his face screwed up painfully before he too nodded – much sooner than Sakura had.  He could not have possibly memorized any of it in that short of an amount of time. 

Sasuke glanced away from watching the crowd to stare at him.  Then again, Naruto had a way of surprising people.  Naruto managed to know things when one least expected him to, and Sasuke was trying to make it a point not to underestimate Naruto any more.  At times like this, however, watching him wander off to screw around on the conveyor belt made it difficult to remember that.

“Let’s go,” Kakashi said, his left eye once more covered.

The four of them were becoming quickly accustomed to all of the different forms of transportation available, and the rules and expectations associated with them.  Not to say that there were not mistakes.  Each of them managed at some point to do something that drew attention, but they were each learning how to defuse such problems.  Sasuke, for example, had learned that behaving in a manner rather similar to that of Hyuuga Neji allowed him to brush by anyone who would object.  Sakura and Naruto had developed a rather complex dance of bumbling buffoon and extremely apologetic friend.  Kakashi just feigned pretend ignorance.  It was annoying how well it worked for him.

After a couple more hours and the four of them stood outside of a _very_ tall building which appeared to be constructed entirely out of glass and metal.

            “This,” Kakashi commented quietly, “is not going to be easy.”

            “We gotta check every floor?” Naruto whined.

            He was being annoying, but Sasuke found that he agreed with the sentiment, at least.  Judging by the number of windows, there had to be at least a dozen floors.  And to think this building was one of the more modest on this street.  “Why do they need buildings so large?” he muttered.

            Sakura had been staring at the front doors and had not said anything up until that point.  “I wonder,” she murmured.

            Kakashi turned to look at her.  “Yes, Sakura-chan?” he asked slowly.

            Sakura flushed slightly and glared at him.  There was something about the way Kakashi added “chan” to her name that made her hackles rise, probably in the same way Sasuke wanted to hurt the other man when he called him “Sasuke-kun”.

            She crossed her arms and pointedly looked away from her teacher.  “We could try just asking.”

            “Sakura!” Naruto gasped.  “We can’t just do that!  What about all that stuff you were just telling me about how we’re shinobi and that means being sneaky and not being seen and we can’t just waltz in there an _ask_!”

            Sasuke stared at her for a moment, turning the idea over in this head.  Then he glanced at the large glass doors.  He could, from this distance, barely make out the shape of a large desk just beyond the doors, and a man behind it seemingly giving directions to the couple standing in front of it.  Just _asking_ would most likely not have been something he would have though of, but the idea did seem to have some merit.

            Sasuke glanced over at Kakashi and saw that he seemed to be thinking the same thing.  The other man tilted his head slightly to catch Sasuke’s gaze and grinned back at him.

            “It is not stupid!” Sakura was shouting at Naruto.  “Look, it’s the last thing somebody up to no good would do.  Besides, they don’t even know what shinobi are.  They’re certainly not going to be on guard against us.  No one else has thought anything suspicious of us, there’s no reason for these people to.”

            “Sakura should be the one to go,” Sasuke interrupted.  Knowing Kakashi, he would have let the two of them continue to argue.

            They both stopped and glanced over at him.  “I should?” Sakura asked.

            Sasuke nodded sharply.  “You are the one most familiar with bureaucracy.  These people seem to be able to sense that.  Beside which, none of the rest of us have the kind of people skills you do.  Naruto annoys people-”

            “Hey!”

            “- people annoy me, and Kakashi is not even worth thinking about.”

            Kakashi continued to grin.

            Naruto frowned.  “I don’t know.  I don’t really like Sakura going in there by herself.  I mean, we don’t know anything about this place.”

            “You think I can’t take care of myself?” Sakura growled, looking more than just angry.  Looking almost hurt under all that anger.

            “Of course not,” both Sasuke and Naruto replied immediately.

Sasuke glanced away.  Their quick response seemed to have dissipated whatever had just almost happened.  It was no secret in all of Konoha that Sasuke and Naruto were in a stiff competition against each other to prove who was stronger.  It had been like that for so long that no one seemed to remember a time when things had not been as such.  But ever since whatever had happened while Sasuke had been – gone – there had been yet another tension in their small little group.  And for once, it was not because of Sasuke or Naruto.

They had not discussed it yet, but they were going to have to.  Soon.  But not now.  Not during a mission.

“Look,” Naruto said.  “It’s not that we don’t think you can.  Heck no.  It’s just – what if something goes wrong, ya know?  You won’t have any back up.  And I don’t just mean the big kind of something going wrong, but the little kind too.  Like, you need someone to cover for you or make a distraction or something.  You won’t have that in there if you’re all by yourself and we might only have on shot at this and we don’t have much time for a back-up plan.”

Sasuke winced.  No, not much time at all.  It may already have been too late to find anything other than mutilated bodies and blood and nothing more.

“Naruto’s right,” Kakashi announced.  He turned to look at Sakura.  “Sasuke will go with you.”

“Sasuke!” Naruto yelped.  “Why the ice bastard and not me?”

“Because he is an ice bastard,” Kakashi replied without bothering to hide his amusement.  “It’ll contrast nicely with Sakura’s sweet disposition and keep anyone they encounter unbalanced enough to give them an edge.  Besides which, that wonderful personality our Sasuke-kun has been practicing on perfecting since childhood ought to make anyone who has to deal with him eager to do whatever it takes to get him to leave quickly.”

Sasuke growled at the “Sasuke-kun” comment, but refrained from snapping back.  He wanted to be part of the team that went in.  It was his family.  He needed to be there every step of the way.  Even if Sakura was one of the _very_ few people he would trust to do this right.

“Also,” Sakura piped up.  “Sasuke-kun’s cuter,” she added.

Sasuke cringed, jerking his head around to glare at her.  She had not started any of that nonsense ever since she and Naruto had brought him back to the village.  It had been bad enough as children, but if she started it up again, he was going to have to ask not to be teamed up with her.  He could not put up with that any more.  But despite a slight flush to her cheeks, Sakura was smirking.  And it was not a flirtatious kind of smile.

She was teasing him.  Both him and Naruto actually.  And it was kind of funny, really.  Sasuke just snorted and turned away.  Naruto could not pass up a challenge like that and started arguing with her about how he had to be much cuter than Sasuke.

“Come on, we have work to do,” Sasuke told her as he started walking away.

She jogged to catch up with him.  “Whatever you say, Sasuke-kun,” she replied in an overly-sweet tone and with a far too evil glint in her eyes and Sasuke finally realized that he was in a lot more trouble than having to avoid a rabid fan-girl – Sakura was out for a little revenge of her own.

Sasuke could live with that.

 

* * *

 

“Number four, Privet Drive, Surrey!” Sakura announced happily as she slipped into a chair.  Kakashi-sensei and Naruto had commandeered a table at a small café a few buildings down.  Kakashi-sensei had what smelled like a cup of coffee in front of him while Naruto was happily munching on something light, fluffy and drenched in sugar and syrup.  With a bright smile, Sakura snatched up the menu and started trying to read it.  The four of them had quickly learned how to speak English, but reading it still took a bit of concentration for her.  Jiraiya and Tsunade-sama were going to work on some form of genjitsu to help with translating and would hopefully have it done by the time they returned.  Right now she had to decide which of these things sounded most like it would be eatable.  So far, she’d had some bad experiences with anything fried or involving beef.

“There was a genjitsu,” Sasuke stated as soon as they were near the table.  He didn’t sit down either.

Sakura glanced over at him and sighed.  She had better order something for him as well.  It wouldn’t do any good for him not to eat.  He didn’t seem to care, despite the fact that this latest phase of the mission had gone so well.  All she had had to do was smile and say “please” and “thank you” and those people had been very helpful.  Or at least busy enough and completely unconcerned with what she did that it had been very helpful.  The only difficulty was figuring out which room on the floor dedicated to Family Services was where they kept their records.  Sneaking in had been easy for a couple of shinobi.

Kakashi-sensei glanced up.  “A genjitsu?” he repeated.

“On his file,” Sasuke confirmed.  “It was fairly simplistic in nature, but still there.  Someone is trying to hide him.”

Naruto glanced up.  “So there is a cousin.  We’re sure now?”

Sakura nodded.  “Harry James Potter.  Age 15.  Born July 13, 1980.  Parents James and Lily Potter, deceased October 31 1981.  Legal Guardians Vernon and sister of the mother, Petunia Dursley, number four, Privet Drive, Surrey.”

“Huh,” Naruto replied.  “He’s almost our age.”

“We don’t have much time,” Sasuke reminded them.  He was scowling.  Sakura sighed and started to put the menu back when Kakashi-sensei waved for her not to.

“But Sakura-chan has not eaten yet, Sasuke-kun,” he said slowly.  “After all that smiling and bureaucratizing, she must be very hungry.  You should be too.”

“But-”

“Sit.”

Sasuke glared at him, but stiffly pulled out a chair and sat down.  Not a moment later, a waitress appeared by their table and Sakura wasted no time placing an order of soup and salad for both of them.  That couldn’t be too horrifying.  It had been a while since they had eaten anything, and even longer since they had eaten anything decent.

Kakashi-sensei was beaming at them from across the table.  “While all my cute little students are getting their daily nutrition, I am going to go see to our funds.”  He stood up slowly, gave a lazily little salute and slouching, walked away from their table to disappear in the rush of people moving by.

“Huh?”

“He’s going to go steal some money, Naruto,” Sakura clarified.

Naruto frowned, but didn’t say anything.  The explanation seemed to pacify Sasuke some, since he relaxed out of the very stiff posture he had maintained ever since sitting.

“Did he leave the map?” he demanded.

Sakura sighed.  At least it would give them something to do until their food arrived; and maybe Sasuke would actually be calm enough to eat comfortably once they had a plan.  Everything would be alright, he’d see that.  Potter-san was alive.  Sasuke had a living, normal relative.  Someone else to think about instead of just Itachi and power.  He needed this.  Team 7 wasn’t enough for him.  As much as Sakura and Naruto had wanted to be enough for him and had tried, they just weren’t.  They never had been and never would be.  But they would always be by his side, and maybe, just maybe, this Harry Potter would be the one thing Sasuke needed to be a living, normal part of Konoha again.


	4. Making Connections - Day 1 Part 1

* * *

 

The grass had to be mowed and the garden had to be weeded – again. Both bathrooms had to be cleaned. Aunt Petunia wanted roast tonight, and that had to marinate for at least a few hours before being cooked, which had to be done an hour before dinner was to be ready. Sirius was not to be thought of. No matter how much it hurt. No matter how much of a betrayal it felt like not to. Harry Potter was responsible for a great deal worse things than just that. Not thinking about something was sometimes the only way to handle something. He’d learned that very early on.

So he dealt with the roast first, because it needed the most time. Then he headed outside. It was still early enough that it wasn’t mind-boiling hot out yet. Best time to be done with the yard work. Then he could focus on the bathrooms when it was so hot out that being stuck scrubbing floors inside would seem blessedly cool.

After that, Aunt Petunia would hopefully be distracted enough with her television that he could nick the paper long enough to have a look through it. There had been no news of anything that sounded like Voldemort or his Death Eaters, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be soon. After all, a war was coming. And there was a prophecy to consider – but it was best not to think about that either. He’d tried thinking about it. Spent the first three weeks of summer vacation thinking of little else, but as much as he repeated it over and over again in his head, he still didn’t know what to do about it.

He was using a small gardening shovel to get up those weeds, stabbing with a bit more force than was really necessary when he heard the doorbell ring. He paused. He was working in the backyard, so hopefully Aunt Petunia would just answer it. She wouldn’t like him opening the door looking the way he did right now. Mowing and weeding the yard was dirt work, and he hadn’t bothered trying to avoid it. He’d have to shower afterwards anyway.

The doorbell rang again.

Harry set down his shovel with a sigh and struggled up to his feet. His back was sore from being bent over for so long and he rubbed it as he started to walk around the house. It was probably just a salesman. Who cared if a salesman saw him covered in dirt and grass clipping? Anyone who actually did yard work would understand.

He hadn’t rounded the corner yet when he heard the front door swing open. So Aunt Petunia had decided to answer it after all. Harry started to turn around but then he heard a girl’s voice, with a very heavy accent. He frowned. That didn’t sound like a salesman. Maybe it was someone interesting. A new neighbor, perhaps. The Dursleys would eventually tell them all kinds of horrible stories about him so that they’d hate him just as much as the Dursleys did, but that didn’t mean Harry couldn’t try to be nice. He’d been about to come around the corner when he heard the last question he had expected.

“Excuse me, madam,” the girl asked. “But does Harry Potter live here?”

Harry’s body froze, but his heart speed up so fast it almost hurt and his stomach seemed to have dropped to somewhere down by his knees.

“W-who?” Aunt Petunia stammered.

Harry swallowed slowly, and reached into his pocket. That was the one good thing about Dudley’s castoffs – they had pockets big enough to hide a wand in easily.

“Harry Potter,” the girl’s voice repeated. “This is number four, Privet Drive, yes?”

No one should know he lived here. At least, not anyone outside of the Order, and Harry was certain that whoever that was, he’d never heard her voice before. It was possible one of the Order members might disguise themselves, but if they _knew_ he lived here, why would they _ask_.

“You’re some of those freaks, aren’t you?” Aunt Petunia’s voice had reached that ear-piercing shrill tone that she usually only saved for him. It was enough to make Harry wince from where he stood around the house. It had to be painful for whoever was standing right in front of her. And to say something like that! What if those where Death Eaters in disguise? Granted, she’d have no way of knowing that, but still. Harry spun around and hurried back towards the front of the house. He had to do _something_ , even if he didn’t know what that something was.

“There’s no one here by that name!” Aunt Petunia suddenly announced. “Now get out of here! I don’t know who you people are, but we don’t want your kind around here, so just go away!”

Harry slid into a stop just at the edge of the house in time to hear the front door slam shut. Well, thank goodness for Aunt Petunia being decisively rude to everything weird. If she was safe inside, then maybe she’d be left alone. After all, why would Death Eaters care about her if they already had him?

Harry tightened his grip on his wand. Please, please just be one of the Weasley’s in disguise. He leaned out around the corner. He was still hidden behind the front bushes, but he could just barely see the four people standing halfway down the sidewalk leading up to the house.

Well, at least they didn’t look like Death Eaters, though they definitely didn’t look like anyone he knew. Three of them looked to be about his age. The girl was easy to pick out. She had bright pink hair. He would have mistaken her for Tonks maybe, but she was definitely shorter. There were two boys with her, a blond one dressed completely in orange and a black haired one in blue and black. The fourth person was taller, with a shock of white hair that stuck up over some kind of headband. He was wearing something blue and green that almost looked like some kind of military fatigues, which was only even more confusing. They certainly where not the normal kind of people expected on Privet Drive, but they also seemed to scream muggle. Harry had never seen a wizard in military fatigues.

“She is lying,” the boy with dark hair hissed. “We do not have time for this.”

Harry shifted to see better.

“Now we don’t want to go rushing off into things again, do we?” the older one said. Harry winced, thinking about how many times he’d been told the same things and how and what it had taken for him to learn it. “We’re not here to antagonize people,” the older man continued. And for a moment, his eyes seemed to flicker over towards Harry.

Harry gritted his teeth. This was probably the best chance he had to distract them away from the house. And maybe even get away himself. He knew this neighborhood inside and out. If he could get them to chase him, he might be able to loose them somewhere away from Number 4, or maybe even ambush them someplace where he’d have the upper hand.

Harry held his wand tightly at his side, ready to flick it up and cast the first spell that came to mind if he had to. It was as ready as he was ever going to be. He straightened up carefully and stepped around the bush, placing himself in full view of the front of the house but still leaving him somewhere to dash back behind and hide.

The tall one was already glancing in his direction, but the other three jerked around immediately to stare at him. He’d managed to somewhat surprise them and Harry studied them quickly. No, he certainly didn’t recognize anything about these people. Nothing about their faces, clothing or eyes was familiar to him. This wasn’t the twins playing some elaborate joke. It wasn’t the Order bumbling their way through the muggle world. These were strangers, potentially dangerous strangers and they’d come here looking for him.

The scowling boy with dark hair as messy as Harry’s twicthed suddenly and took one step towards Harry. Harry lurched back a step himself in response and he’d himself ready to run. “Who are you?’ he demanded harshly. He wasn’t going to be afraid. He wasn’t going to let himself be afraid. Even if these people might be Death Eaters in disguise, even if he might be about to find himself dragged before Voldemort yet again, he was not going to let them see him afraid. “What’d you what?”

The dark haired boy froze, body held stiffly between one step and the next and eyes focused on Harry with a kind of intensity Harry didn’t think he’d ever seen before. It was as of the other boy thought he could force something out of Harry just by staring at him. At the last second Harry remembered all of those worthless lessons of occulmacy. Eye contact. It required eye contact. Harry twisted his head to the side and squeezed his eyes shut before immediately realizing how bad of an idea that was. What was he thinking, closing his eyes at a time like this? He snapped them back open but very, very careful kept them away from meeting the other boy’s gaze. None of the others seemed to be trying to stare him down, so he hoped it was safe enough to glare back at them.

“You’d better leave. Now,” Harry demanded.

“Anno, Potter-san,” the girl replied quietly. She had her hands clasped in front of her and was biting her lip. Nothing about her hinted at a threat but somehow Harry couldn’t help but feel that she was dangerous. Like a powerful spell, contained within something inconspicuous and mundane, but just waiting to be unleashed. And what did “san” mean, and what the hell did it have to do with him?

“Oi, idiot.”

Harry’s attention shifted sharply from the girl to the blond boy in orange. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was staring at Harry critically. He had his nose scrunched up and lifted into the air as if that would make him seem taller. His bright blue eyes were narrowed but watching Harry like he was studying ever detail. “We’re here to save your ass,” the blond boy finally announced. “So you don’t have to go all acting like a jerk. One teme is enough for this group.”

The boy’s accent was even thicker than the girl’s but it was clear enough that Harry could understand him. His words just didn’t make any sense. “Save me?” he repeated to himself.

“You are Harry Potter?” the dark haired boy demanded. He took another step forward and Harry jerked back again. He didn’t seem to notice. Harry glanced over at him again, trying to avoid making direct eye contact with him, but also unable to resist his curiosity. He sounded so – odd; and it wasn’t just the accent. There was something about his tone of voice that for one confusing moment reminded him of Sirius.

Can’t think about Sirius, Harry reminded himself again. He must really be beginning to lose it if he thought this weird stranger sounded anything like his godfather.

“Your father was called James Potter, correct?” the other boy persisted.

His father’s name made something in Harry twist sideways painfully. And it wasn’t just the normal empty feeling of having never known him and never had parents. It was the tied memory of Sirius to it and trying to live up to Sirius’s memory of his father and trying to combine that with the damning memory of Snape’s that Harry had never ever wanted to see.

Harry’s eyes narrowed. If this was some kind of cheap shot he wasn’t going to let them get away with it. “What do you know about my father?” he hissed back scornfully.

“More than you.”

It wasn’t the dark haired boy who answered, nor any of those with him. It was a new voice, coming from the street off to the right. Harry twisted his body around so that his back wasn’t to anybody. He had only a moment to see the surprise on the girl’s face, the worry on the blond boy’s and the pure rage on the dark haired one. Harry’s heart seemed to skip a beat.

This was not good.

He didn’t know what was going on, but somehow things had moved from bad to much, much worse.

 

* * *

 

 

They’d had to take another bus, then a taxi, to make it out to Privet Drive. However Kakashi-sensei had managed to provide funds for their trip, it was enough to cover all of their expenses. By morning of the next day, the four of them found themselves standing before a blue and white house with a precisely manicured front lawn.

“Is this really the place?” Naruto demanded. He had his arms behind his head and leaned back to take in the whole house. It wasn’t that big, he supposed, but it looked like a comfortable amount of space to him. But anything compared to his tiny apartment seemed nice. It had two floors, for starters, and blue painted shudders and white trim along all the edges. The roof tiles looked a little funny, both rough but flat enough to provide little to no traction. There was one of those car things parked out front, shining brightly in the early morning light. Flowering bushes lined the side of the house. It looked a whole world better than that creepy house Sasuke-teme lived in.

But there was something off about it.

Naruto frowned and tilted his head to study it out of the corner of his eye. Then he looked both left and right at all of the other houses along the street. “Ne, how do you think they remember which one is theirs?” he asked.

Sakura turned her head to half glare, half stare at him in confusion, as if she wanted to ask him what he meant but was afraid to know the answer.

Naruto grinned back at her and gestured with one thumb. “Look, see. They all look alike. How do they remember which one is theirs?”

Sakura glared at him for a moment, then sighed and gave up. “I guess that’s what the numbers are for.”

Sasuke said nothing from where he was standing between the two of them. He hadn’t said anything since they’d gotten into the taxi, and nothing on the bus ride before that. He hadn’t said a word since they’d left London. All of his attention seemed fixed in one place and one place only.

He stared at the house. Stared at it as if he expected the answer to be painted boldly across the walls, from one window to the next in much the same fashion as Naruto had painted over the Hokage Mountain all those years ago. Sasuke stared and did that creepy Sasuke-teme thing and Naruto felt like punching him in the shoulder just to make him react to something. Except now wasn’t the time to be fooling around. They had a mission. A very important Team 7 mission. One that was almost as important as bringing Sasuke-teme back from the snake-bastard and almost as important as saving Gaara from those Akatsuki-bastards. Cause this Potter kid was Sasuke’s family, which made him Team 7 family, and there was no way in hell they were going to let any crazy traitor-bastards take that away.

Naruto grinned. Nope. No way in hell.

Then Sasuke stepped forward and very quickly made his way up to the front door. He paused after stepping up to it and continued to stare at it like some kind of freak. The rest of Team 7 had followed right behind him.

“Why don’t you let Sakura do it?” Naruto suggested when everyone else did nothing else but stare at the door. “She’s supposed to be good with this kind of stuff, right? Just like last time.”

“This is different,” Sasuke snapped back.

Sakura was watching him closely. “I’d like to try, if you don’t mind,” she asked.

Sasuke-teme flickered his eyes over to her for just a moment, before slowly stepping back from the door to allow her to. Sakura gave him a small smile, then with a fortifying deep breath, knocked sharply on the door.

Naruto just kept smiling. Everything looked good so far, and he was going to take that as a very good sign. He somehow suspected that if Itachi-bastard had been through here, then there’d be signs of it. Like body parts in the yard and blood smeared across the door, or something. But everything looked unbelievably normal, like nothing weird ever had or ever could happen here. It made Naruto kind of uncomfortable, but it still seemed like a good sign.

The woman who opened the door was thin, and she wasn’t happy to be disturbed. She stared at them with that kind of pinched look that Naruto was all too familiar with. He flinched instinctively. This was not going to go well. She looked like she’d just opened the door to find some kind of filth standing on her porch.

Sakura either didn’t understand or she was just forging on ahead, because she smiled the same way she always did when on a mission. “Excuse me, ma’am, but does Harry Potter live here?” she asked.

What little color the woman had drained completely out of her face. It would have been comical if he wasn’t so on edge. Stupid old woman could use a good shock or too, Naruto suspected, but not when it was something that would potentially mess up his mission.

“W-who?” she stuttered. Her distress was as obvious as Kakashi-sensei’s bad habits.

“Harry Potter,” Sakura repeated, her voice a little more strained. “This is number four, Privet Drive, yes?”

They had not expected to encounter a problem like this. It was obvious the woman knew exactly who this Potter kid was, and she was more than a little freaked out about it. Was it possible that Itachi had managed to make it here before them? He didn’t seem like the type to cover his tracks this well when there was no need to, but it was possible.

Naruto shifted nervously. He didn’t even want to think about the possibility of that having happened. Because that would mean that they were already too late – that the only chance Sasuke had at having family again was gone just as fast as it had come. It also meant this could be one very dangerous trap.

Sasuke’s stance shifted as well. He had either come to the same possible conclusion as Naruto, or this was simply taking too long for his tastes. He wasn’t going to put up this much longer.

For better or worse, the woman seemed to come to her own conclusion at the same time. “You’re some of those freaks, aren’t you?” she suddenly hissed out.

Naruto flinched back again. “Freak” wasn’t the term he usually heard, but the venom behind it was all too familiar. He was right. He’d known it from the moment he’d seen this woman. There was something about the way she was that was just as plain as day to him as the same hate he saw back in the village. But there wasn’t any way she could know anything about him and there was no reason to call the rest of Team 7 freaks, unless she somehow knew they were ninja, maybe, but even then, how would she know that? Naruto felt like tugging at his hair.

“There’s no one here by that name!” the woman continued. Her face was bright red now, and she was already shifting back away from them. “Now get out of here! I don’t know who you people are, but we don’t want your kind around here, so just go away!”

Sasuke started to move forward, but Kakashi-sensei’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the back of the shirt to keep him from moving. The woman slammed the door and the four of them were left staring at it.

Yep. Definitely did not go well.

Sasuke spun around to glare at Kakashi-sensei. “She is lying,” he grated out through clenched teeth. “We do not have time for this.” Naruto half expected to see the sharingan activated out of pure fury, but the other boy seemed to be holding it in check.

Kakashi-sensei just smiled back. “Now we don’t want to go rushing off into things again, do we?” he asked and Naruto had to wonder which one of them the comment was referring to the most. Sasuke had done all kinds of stupid things before and Naruto was forever hearing people tell him not to try rushing things. Neither of them much listened to any advice not to, but there was something about the way Kakashi-sensei said it that made it clear he expected them to heed it now. “We’re not here to antagonize people,” Kakashi-sensei added before flickering his eyes quite obviously to something behind them and off to the left of the house.

The rest of Team 7 jerked around to see what it was, and standing there was a young man about their age with messy black hair, wide bright green eyes and the biggest, dorkiest glasses Naruto had ever seen. The eyes were kind of startling, but the resemblance was still fairly clear. This was definitely a Uchiha. He even had funny looking hair like Sasuke.

Sasuke seemed to recognize the resemblance as well. His whole body spasmed in the most alarming way, but his eyes didn’t waver for a moment away from the very living and whole missing cousin that was standing before him. He stepped forward slowly, taking one stuttering step off of the sidewalk.

The kid flinched back in very obvious and very distinct fear. It was obvious in everything from the tight way he was holding himself to the way his body seemed to almost instinctively lean towards the illusion of safety behind the house.

It was impossible to tell what Sasuke thought about that fear, but he stopped moving forward just as suddenly.

“Who are you?” the boy demanded. “What’d you want?”

Wow. He even sounded like a pissy Sasuke-teme. Naruto was kind of impressed. It must be some kind of genetic inborn thing and not just a shitty attitude like Naruto had always assumed.

The other boy jerked again for some reason and suddenly absolutely would not look Sasuke in the eyes. Naruto frowned at him. He could understand not wanting to look at Sasuke-teme’s ugly face but it all seemed kind of weird. Naruto leaned forward just a little and got a better look at Sasuke’s eyes. Nope. Still no sharingan. Nothing to freak out the other kid.

“You better leave,” the boy continued. “Now.” He had his chin lifted up defiantly, but the rest of his body language was still terror filled. He managed to keep most of it out of his voice, though. He was still being a jerked, however.

Sakura jumped in immediately without waiting for a cue from Kakashi-sensei. “Ano, Potter-san,” she started softly. It was way too nice for what this kid needed and Naruto wasn’t going to waste time listening to her try to talk him down.

“Oi, idiot,” he announced. The boy’s green eyes switched over to staring at him and narrowed slowly. Naruto just grinned back. Now that was better. Always better to be pissed than scared. It was just way too weird seeing someone who looked as much like Sasuke-teme looking that desperate. Calling someone an idiot was always a good way to get them going. Naruto, after all, ought to know that. “We’re here to save your ass,” he continued, crossing his arms over his chest and feeling quite pleased with himself for taking charge of the situation. “So you don’t have to go all acting like a jerk. One teme is enough for this group.”

That seemed to knock some sense back into him. “Save me?” he repeated slowly. His eyes were flickering over the group again, still pointedly avoiding Sasuke-teme’s but he didn’t look ready to run anymore, nor like he was going to try fighting them.

Sasuke-teme, of course, had to go and ruin all that. “You are Harry Potter?” he asked even though there was no way this kid could be anyone else. It was the kind of stupid question he’d make fun of Naruto for if he’d asked something as obvious. He didn’t seem to be able to resist it, however, which was a little unsettling coming from the super-repressed Uchiha Sasuke. He even started to take another step forward, but the kid jerked back again and Sasuke had to stop. His fists were clenched at his sides and Naruto was starting to get a little concerned that he’d do something stupid if this dragged out long enough.

They all waited a moment as Sasuke seemed to pull himself back together again. “Your father was called James Potter, correct?” he finally asked. His voice was back to that mission mode tone – which was better than semi-freaked out but still not exactly friendly-like. It was Sasuke-teme, however, and friendly-like just didn’t happen.

The affect was kind of interesting and confused the hell out of Naruto. The Potter kid went from false bravado and barely controlled fear to spitting angry. “What do you know about my father?” he hissed at them.

Naruto was just about to break it up again with some kind of flippant remark when all hell broke loose.

There was a sudden sense of danger by long trained instincts and then someone else replied.

“More than you do.”

Naruto jerked his head around to stare at him so fast he nearly hurt something, but there he was. Uchiha Itachi. Standing as calmly as you please in the middle of the street.

Things after that moved really, really quickly.

Itachi surged forward towards Potter and Sasuke was moving not a moment behind.  The two of them met in the middle with a deafening clang as kunai smashed into kuani.  Not one to be left out of such things, Naruto rushed into motion just behind his teammate, coming at Itachi from the side.  Between the two of them they forced the other nin back and away from his target.

Potter made some kind of half-strangled noise from behind them and Naruto grinned a little to himself.  Guess their cover as not being dangerous ninja was pretty much just blown out of existence.

Sakura wasted no time in moving either.  Instead of positioning herself to challenge Itachi, she darted over to Potter’s side, getting a deceptively powerful grip on his arm.  Her other hand was digging into her supply pouch and pulled out a scroll.  The transportation scroll Tsunade-ba-chan had given to each of them.  Any one scroll could be used for several people at once, and each of them had been equipped with it.  She’d get Potter out of here, back to Fire Country and just outside of the village borders and its protection.  It was unlikely that Itachi had anything similar prepared, and as long as Naruto and Sasuke-teme kept him busy, there was no way he could use one if he did.

And maybe, just maybe, they’d be able to put an end to all of this right now.

It was a bit of a long-shot, but at least Potter would be safe.  That was the main mission right now.  Keep Sasuke’s cousin alive.

Itachi seemed to guess at their intent and moved suddenly.  His speed was even greater than Sasuke-teme’s and Naruto would have cursed if he hadn’t been so busy desperately trying to do something to slow him down enough for Sakura to have that two seconds it took to activate the scroll.  He forced Itachi away from approaching at one angle, and forced him into taking a path closer to Sasuke.  That was enough to give Sasuke-teme the chance to throw several shuriken at him.  None of them hit, of course, but dodging slowed him down a little more.  It might not have been enough if Kakashi-sensei hadn’t come exploding out of the ground directly in front of Sakura and Potter.  Getting passed the Great Copy Nin would take a little more work even for someone like Itachi.

And with a swish of paper and a strong flare of chakra, Sakura and the primary objective of the mission disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke-teme and Naruto to give their best at bringing one of the worst missing nin to ever come form their village to justice for his crimes.

 

* * *

 

There wasn't any time to react.

There just wasn't.

One moment Harry was trying to glare down the four dangerous strangers standing on his doorstep and the next moment there was a fifth and all hell broke loose.

He only got a brief look at this new one.  The resemblance to the other dark-haired boy was obvious.  Except this one was older than Harry, with deep lines on his face and straggly long black hair.  Everything else was lost into a featureless mass beneath a long black cloak with a pattern of dark red shapes on it.  Except for his eyes.  His eyes were red.

Harry had only ever met one other person with red eyes, if you could call him a person.

Red eyes and black hair, but this wasn't him.  It couldn't be.  Even as those familiar feelings of hate and anger and fear and hopeless determination swept through him with such a speed and force as to leave him breathless, he kept repeating it to himself.  It couldn't be him.

Not now, not yet, not here.

But Harry didn't have time to panic beyond that.

The fifth figure was moving. He only barely managed to see it, years of playing Quidditch having honed his eyes to follow even the fastest of motions.  Or what he thought was the fastest.  This man moved faster than any broom Harry had ever seen.  One second he was standing across the street and the next he was crashing into the dark haired boy in the middle of Aunt Petunia's lawn.  The sound of screeching metal filled the air and Harry inhaled sharply and tried to jerk back.  Too fast.  This was all just too fast.

Harry's fingers tightened around his wand.  But before he would even raise it the pink haired girl was at his side, one of her pale small hands resting lightly on his forearm.  "Please, Potter-san, you are going to have to trust us!" she whispered quickly.

He didn't have to trust anyone and he'd learned the hard way not to.  But somehow, things had changed.  The dark haired boy and the light haired boy in orange were now in the middle of the yard, facing off with the man with red eyes, standing between him and Harry.  The girl's hand was soft and hovered loosely over his arm.  She wasn't grabbing at him the way his Uncle would.  She was asking.

And every instinct in his body was screaming at him to get as far away from the red-eyed man as possible.  His wand was warm in his hand.

Red-eyes caught his over the shoulder of the dark haired boy and Harry knew just as completely that he'd never be able to cast something fast enough.

Everything shifted suddenly, again.  A red and black blur darted right, then left as one of the two teenagers moved to intercept it.  The other threw something shiny and undoubtedly sharp at it, and the shape shifted again.

It was still heading straight for Harry and the girl.

This time Harry grabbed her arm and started to push himself back.  It probably wouldn't be enough, but he had to do something.  Hopefully he could pull the two of them back behind the limited shelter of the house and bushes.

Something exploded the ground right in front of them and Harry flinched back.  He screwed his eyes shut and lifted his free arm to shield his face.  He expected to feel heat of some sort, or possibly shrapnel, but was thankfully only pelted with lumps of dry dirt and clumps of grass.

He cracked one eye open.

The white-haired man was in front of them now, close enough that Harry could almost feel the heat coming off of him.  It tingled down his spin like magic.

Then the girl was unraveling some kind of scroll.  Hermione used scrolls on a rare occasion, but they never looked like this one.  This own was backed with some kind of red fabric and was covered in odd oriental looking symbols and wriggling lines and circles.  He only had a moment to glance at it, to feel it humming before the girl tossed it from one hand to another so that it arched up behind him.  She shouted out something he couldn't understand.

It didn't sound like Latin, but the effect was very similar.

The humming changed to warmth and light and a high pitched whistling noise and then pop!

It was a spell.  Some kind of spell.  And it was trying to take him away from Number 4 Privet Drive.

Harry panicked.  He forgot about trusting and tried to jerk back, tried to push it away.  Blindly, instinctively, he tried to pull into himself while at the same time pushing everything else out.

For a heartbeat, it seemed to work.  Everything just stopped.  The warmth was still there.  In fact, it and the pressure were only getting worse, but the feeling of moving, of being hurled from one side of the galaxy to another stopped.  It hurt but he was stopped.

And no sooner was he able to even think that, than he was suddenly moving again.  The pressure pushed in and the heat swooshed out and then he was on his knees in the dirt throwing up what little breakfast he had had.

His stomach clenched violently, his head pounded and his vision waved.  His entire body felt both stretched out and twisted up so badly that everything just hurt.  He dry heaved again, spat, heaved again, and moaned.

That was so much worse than any portkey or Apparation he had ever experienced.

"Potter-san?"

The girl was kneeling by his side, and before he could even shove her away to protect himself she reached out and laid one hand on his forehead. Everything glowed green and the pain stopped.  He half sighed, half moaned in relief and fought the urge to curl in tighter about himself until he resembled nothing more than a small pitiful ball.  Whatever she was doing, no matter how potentially dangerous it might be, he hoped it never stopped.

She made a small noise and supported his shoulder with her other hand.  "I've never seen someone react so badly to a transportation jutsu," she commented.

Harry wasn't exactly sure what a "jutsu" was but he could guess.  Jutsu.  Voodoo.  Spell.  Thing that made him feel like he was dying.

"For a moment I thought it wasn't going to work," the girl continued calmly, sound very much like Hermione reflecting on a class assignment she wasn't completely happy with.  "I would never think a scroll given to us by Tsunade-sama herself would be faulty, but I think I almost lost you there.  How very, very odd.  I'll have to ask her once we've returned."

Harry only understood half of what that all meant.  Something had gone wrong and that's why it hurt so bad.  He had a feeling he knew what it was, but he wasn't going to volunteer that information right now.  "Where?" he croaked once the heaving stopped.

She removed her hand from his forehead, but kept the one on his shoulder, effortlessly holding him up.  "Fire Country, just outside the border of the Hidden Village of the Leaf, Konoha. Our home village."

Harry shut his eyes and tried leaning back.  His wand was still in one hand, the familiar wood almost painful hot against his skin.  He quickly shoved it away inside one of his pockets.  No one seemed to have noticed it yet, and it was probably best to keep it that way.  Besides, it gave him two hands to rub at sore eyes with.  "Fire Country?" he repeated slowly.  "Not in England?"  It was, perhaps, not the most eloquent of statements, but his mind was still fuzzy despite whatever wonderful spell she'd done to take away the worst of it.

The pink haired girl was kneeling beside him, her green eyes studying him carefully and her bottom lip caught between her teeth.  She couldn’t be much older than he was, but with her hair pulled back like that and with the gloves and boots she was wearing and the very deathly serious expression on her face, she made every other girl he'd ever met seem childish.

"I know this was very sudden, Potter-san," she said.  "But we had to get you out of there.  That man was going to kill you."

Harry snorted.  Who wasn't?  "I figured that part out," he replied less sarcastically.  Snapping at her wasn't going to get him anywhere and he was supposed to working on not yelling at people.  Controlling his impulses. Being more grown-up.

She stared back at him for a moment before nodding slowly.  "My name is Haruno Sakura.  You may call me Sakura-chan, Potter-san," she said. "I am a ninja of Konoha, along with my teammates we left behind.  We were sent to find you and protect you from that man."

Harry blinked and struggled to process all of that.  Sakura-chan.  Perhaps -chan was a little like -san, though he still had no idea what it meant. But it couldn't be too bad if she was calling her self that.  Ninja.  Okay, that was just too weird to even conceive of.  Ninja?  Like those funny looking guys in bad Asian movies?  Sakura-chan certainly didn't look anything like one of them, and neither had the blond boy with her.  The white-haired man might, if ninja wore army vests.  The dark-haired boy and the red-eyed man he could imagine. Which brought him back to the next important question.

"Protect me?" he asked dumbly.  "Why would you do that?  And why does he want to kill me?"  He didn’t look like a Death Eater, but maybe Voldemort was widening his recruitment.

Sakura-chan sat back.  "That's kind of complicated, Potter-san," she replied quietly.  "It might be something best left explained later, once we're in Konoha.  I will promise you this," she continued, her voice dropping very low and serious.  "We will protect you. I can promise you that."  Then she smiled brightly.  "So don't worry, hmm?"

She pushed herself up to her feet gracefully and held out her hand to him.  "Come on, Potter-san.  We ought to move away from this place, just to be safe.  We can start walking towards Konoha and I'm sure the others will catch up with us shortly."

Harry stared at her hand, at her face, and the tightness around her eyes.  "Will they be alright?" he asked, not that he knew what they could do about it if they wouldn't.

Her smile slipped just slightly and her eyes focused on him just a bit more sharply.  "Hmm.  I believe they will be," she said slowly.  "Yes.  Kakashi-sensei's too good to die, Sasuke-kun's too stubborn and Naruto's too dumb.  They'll be fine.  They each have a transport scroll too and should be right behind us."

Harry sighed and reached up slowly to take her hand. He had no other choice.  He would have to trust her not to kill him and trust the others not to die.  He was in a country he'd never heard of, with people he had no idea what to expect out of.  It left a distinctly helpless feeling in his stomach that even Sakura-chan's bright smile and soft hands could do anything to soothe.


	5. Making Connections - Interlude 1

* * *

The shadows of Grimmauld Place seemed even darker now.  Longer.  They stretched out from every corner, hung heavily from curtains and ceilings and shrouded portraits.  Candle light and flickering fireplaces only seemed to make it worse as the house struggle to strangle every shred of hope out of any who dared to stay there.

Remus Lupin considered himself a capable wizard, familiar with the Dark Arts and how to resist their crushing weight.  He had adjusted quickly to the old house once the Order chose it as their headquarters.  He had been one of the main people involved in trying clean out as much of the dark taint as possible.  Some of his former students, still very much children, were going to be staying there, and he had been as thorough as possible in making it a safe place for them to stay.

Sirius’s death, however, seemed to undo all of the good he had ever thought he had done.

There was no funeral, because there was no body.  Wizards did not consider someone dead until the body has been carefully examined.  No body, meant no record of death, meant no funeral.  Not even a quite service.

And those that remained behind were left to suffer without closure.

Remus sat in the library, by the empty fireplace, and stared at its blackened stones.  A book was propped open lazily in his lap, a folded bit of parchment on hand in case he felt the need to take notes, and another bright summer day passed by outside while those within Grimmauld’s dark rooms waited.

He’d been without orders for the passed three months.  His work on the Continent had not gone as well as desired.  A new strategy was going to be needed, and until one could be devised or until another task needed to be accomplished, he had been living, quietly, at Grimmauld.

He had never been in this house as a young man.  Sirius had spent as much time away from his family home as possible, and his association with Remus was only one of the many reasons as to why.  Sirius had hated this house in the way only Sirius could hate –completely and passionately.  He swore that he would never again step foot in this house, but like many things that had been promised in their youth, that too had had to change.  Headmaster Dumbledore himself had come to Sirius, asking for permission to once more open the doors of the Black family home.  Not as the heir, but as a fugitive against the rising forced of Voldemort.

Sirius had agreed, and the Order was once more.

At times, as the two of them had sat in the sacred warmth of the kitchen and discussed scenarios, it was as if no time had passed, nothing had changed, and they were still fighting the same war that had swallowed up their childhood.  At the same time, it was impossible to forget all that had happened and all that had changed. The empty chairs around the table had never seemed so loud before.

Remus found it difficult now, to sit in that kitchen. The one room in the whole house that ever felt alive and warm, and he could not bare to enjoy its comfort.  Not alone.

No, the library suited him much better now.  It was always quiet here and there was always something to read, something that might one day be helpful.

Just as Remus was losing himself into such thoughts, a loud bang echoed through the house and several crashing noises could be heard from down the hall.  He tensed, immediately, deeply buried instincts rising up instantaneously at the hint of threat.  His wand was already in hand, his mind moving over where the doors in and out of this room were and what could be used as shelter and what could be used as weapon.

And then Tonks’s loud clear voice rang through the halls.  “I can fix that!” she called out right away with a nervous laugh.

Remus sighed as he smiled just a little. She must have knocked over the hall table again.  She kept catching it with one hip as she hurried around the corner coming from the floo fire place in the kitchen towards the library.  He’d tried moving it to the other side of the hall, but she still managed to tangle herself up into it.  It must be some kind of side affect of being a Metamorphmagus.  Perhaps she never lost that awkward teenage long limbed syndrome or her depth perception was just continually off from her constant transformations.  Depth perception was always a real problem after any kind of major transformation.  Remus was well aware of that from his own shifts back and forth from wolf to man and back again.  He, however, had learned how to adjust to it quickly.  Perhaps that just wasn’t possible for someone who could change anything and everything at will.

Her hair was bright purple today, long in the front and spiked up in the back.  It gave her a cute androgynous kind of look that had him smiling again. “Hello, Tonks,” he greeted her as she stumbled into the room.

Tonks smiled, laughed and dusted herself off hastily.  “You didn’t really like that vase back there, did you?” she asked quickly.

Remus just smiled and shook his head.

She sighed.  “Oh, good, ‘cause I tried putting it back together but it does want to take to any charm I know, so I think it’s going to have to just stay broken. There’s enough junk in this house that no one should notice, right?”

“It is unlikely anyone but the two of us shall even be here for at least another week,” Remus told her in agreement.  “The next meeting is still scheduled for the Tuesday after next.”

Tonks flopped down in the other arm chair with a tired sigh.  “Ugh.  Work stinks.  When are the Weasley’s coming back?  I miss Molly’s cooking.”

Remus grinned.  Molly’s cooking truly was something remarkable.  “Soon, I hope,” he agreed.  “I didn’t think you had work today.”

She rolled her head to the side so that her ice blue eyes could focus on him.  “I wasn’t.  I didn’t, I mean.  I was there yesterday and it ran into today and now I’m here.”

Remus flinched sympathetically.  “Things are getting worse out there,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” she agreed.  “Yeah.”  They sat in silence after that.  It was summer, so there was no crackling fire to listen to, only the wind that never seemed to end whistling through the rafters.  Then Tonks sat forward and literally shook herself.  “Anyway.  I’m due on Potter Watch in half an hour. How’s he doing?”

Remus sighed slowly and shifted his eyes away.  “About the same as always.  Miserable, but alive.”  There wasn’t more he could do for Harry. He wasn’t Sirius.  He had never been able to fill the space Sirius had before now and he certainly couldn’t in Sirius’s wake.

But Tonks just grinned lopsidedly.  “That good, huh?  Well, at least it’s only temporary.  He’s a good kid.  He’ll manage,” she said confidently.

She meant well, but Remus wasn’t so sure.  He was intimately familiar with what that kind of loneliness could do to a person.  The changes in Harry had been apparent last summer.  Even Sirius had commented on it, quietly, when he knew the two of them were alone.  Sirius wasn’t the type to analyze his own feelings, much less someone else’s, but things were different for him with Harry.  He could see the changes, he just didn’t know what to make of it. He thought it was his fault.  After all, he’d failed to keep his promise to take care of Harry. Failed to be there when Harry was younger, then failed again to protect him once he was free.  Remus had had to constantly reassure him that that wasn’t it.  Harry was under a lot of pressure. It was only natural that a boy his age would be angry.  He kept telling Sirius, it wasn’t his fault. Kept telling himself that it wasn’t his either.

“You in there, Remus?”

Tonks was already standing, bending over him slightly.  She was smiling playfully but her eyes were focused on him the way only an Auror could. Someone who was used to watching people for secrets.  “You zoned out there pretty bad,” she commented lightly.  “I know!  You ought to come with me!”

Remus blinked.  “What?”

Tonks laughed.  “Yes!  You need to get out of this house.”  She looked around quickly and shuddered dramatically.  “I don’t know how you stand to stay here all the time as it is.”

He did it because it was Sirius’s house and he was used to dark places.  And he didn’t have anywhere else to go.  But Tonks didn’t need to know that.  Not her with her purple hair and easy laugh.

“Come on, Remy,” she wheeled.  “It’s just a walk around outside.  You know how to pass as a muggle easily.  And you can see Harry.”  She reached out and pulled at his hand, mindless of the scars that covered it like a spider web or deeply set wrinkles.  Her fingers were very small compared to his and perfectly smooth.

“Please?”

She really shouldn’t be touching his hand like that.  She was still holding it, gently cradling it between both of her own. One thumb swiped down, running across his knuckles, then back up again, over and over.

He opened his mouth to refuse.  He was just fine on his own.  He was always on his own.  She shouldn’t be holding his hand like that.

And then the wards shrieked, snapped and shattered into a million pieces they could almost feel failing around them.

Remus was on his feet, wand in hand, everything else forgotten.  Tonks was beside him, body tense, but ready.  “The Fidelius charm?” she asked in confusion.

Remus felt like the floor shifted out from underneath him. “No,” he rasped out.  “Not here.  Harry.”


	6. Making Connections - Day 1 Part 2

* * *

People were screaming.

Sasuke could hear them, faintly, over the roar of his own blood surging through his veins and the sound of chakra being gathered.

Civilians.  Lots of them.  Ninja battles were not meant to take place in the middle of quiet streets in a blissfully ignorant outer country. These people did not even know what chakra was, much less how to avoid high powered jutsus.

But they were not Konoha citizens, and that was his brother standing there, kunai in one hand, face distorted in frustration and anger.

Sasuke could not remember the last time he had seen his brother angry.

And Harry Potter was thousands of miles away, safely under the protection of one of the best medical-nin alive.  Sasuke’s lips twisted back into a sneer of his own.  “Not this time,” he whispered.

Itachi heard him and his eyes narrowed even as the rest of his face smoothed out into perfected disinterest.  “You are over estimating your abilities once again, foolish little brother.”

That deep familiar rage boiled in his stomach even as the rest of his body felt deathly cold. He would not lose control.  Not this time.  He would not attack blindly.  He would attack to kill.  Attack with purpose.  Attack with power.

That did not stop him from flinging a handful of senbon.  It broke the momentary lull and sent his brother into action, flittering left.  Sasuke darted the same direction.  Naruto was in the way.  With a curse, the blond boy wisely flung himself backwards.  Sasuke was not going to stop.  His katana was out in one motion, carefully crafted steel whistling through the air before crashing done into kunai, cracking it, shattering the inferior metal and slashing through cloth and flesh and smoke.

He had expected the clone.

Just as he expected the fire jutsu coming from the left.  It was one of the very basic jutsu so very familiar to any well trained Uchiha. It was a slap in the face. And Sasuke snarled as he jumped back to land gracefully on top of a near by car.

There were five Narutos now filling the yard.  Each one snarled at Itachi as they charged at him.  It was an attack doomed to fail, but that had never stopped Naruto before.  With a yell the five of them moved into action, trying to approach Itachi from all angles.  Itachi let them. He held his ground, hands hanging loosely at his sides and eyes drooped.  It was nothing to him to avoid such an attack.  Stepping back sent two Narutos crashing into each other.  Dirt flew, then smoke billowed out.  It partially obscured the quick movement of Itachi’s hand slicing out with kunai.  Two more clones vanished.  The last Naruto Itachi grabbed by one shoulder and flung backwards.  The blond young man crashed into the house, shattering one of the windows and destroying part of the wall.

“I will have to deal with you later, Naruto-kun,” Itachi announced quietly.

More people were screaming and Naruto was cursing steadily.  Sasuke ignored all of it.  The screaming was nothing but a distraction. The cursing only meant Naruto was alive.

Sasuke tightened his grip on his katana as his eyes spun madly, looking for an opening.  A battle of jutsus would be meaningless between them. He would need to count on his speed, and hope that he was finally faster than his brother.  There!  His brother was turning right, ever so slightly, his weight shifting.  He was responding to something else, but it was the opening Sasuke needed.  He moved silently and with as much chakra enhanced speed as he could push into his legs.

It was too much to hope that his first slice would hit. Itachi blocked it with one kunai. Sasuke followed it with two more strikes, long practice paying off as the movements came to him as smoothly as second nature. They were both blocked. But the last was one he had trained to do one handed, his left arm carefully conditioned to take the weight and pressure of the attack, his right hand free to follow it up with a kunai. It wasn’t standard form, and as he twisted slightly to the right, he attempted to at least score a glancing blow across Itachi’s rib cage. Anything to slow him down.

There was the sound of ripping fabric and then Itachi had moved away, flinging himself back and out of reach. Sasuke stared at him across the torn lawn of number four, Privet Drive. A thin trickle of blood slid off the kunai and dripped onto the grass.

Itachi stared at him for a moment, before pointedly relaxing his stance. “Still not good enough.”

Sasuke narrowed his eyes and flicked his katana back into a starting position.

At the same time, Naruto came flying out of the debris of the corner of the house and came hurdling towards Itachi, Rasengan in hand. Sasuke cursed. The idiot was going to get himself killed! Charging at his brother recklessly was simply offering him an opportunity to easily kill you with a counter attack.

Sasuke flung himself forward. Naruto was moving fast. It would be difficult to dodge. But Itachi had proven himself on more than one occasion capable of eluding seemingly inescapable attacks. Which he did again. With seemingly effortless ease, he twisted and stepped aside at the very last moment, watching Naruto’s dangerous swirl of chakra whish by his face. His right arm was coming around. It wouldn’t be empty, and now Naruto’s entire back was exposed as he tried to compensate. With a curse, Sasuke collided with him, clumsily pushing Naruto out of the way and hastily blocking the kunai aimed for his chest. Naruto’s forward movement continued behind him, followed by a bone rattling rumble and shriek of twisting metal. There had been a car there.

Itachi narrowed eyes never left his face. “I see you still have not learned anything, Sasuke-kun. And here I had hoped your time with that fool Orochimaru had taught you something.”

Sasuke snarled but flung himself backwards. He narrowly missed the second kunai coming up on his unprotected right side. A thin slice of bright red streaked down his left arm. Itachi had twisted the first kunai at just the right angle to slice him as he tried to pull back. It was a shallow wound, and barely worth noting, except that they were both bleeding now from opposite sides. Almost like mirror images staring at each other from across the ruins of a once quiet street.

“I learned everything I needed to know,” Sasuke hissed back. Naruto was on his feet again, detangled from the twisted remains of the Dursley’s car and moving into position behind him. Sasuke had to give the idiot credit, at least he wasn’t rushing off blindly any more. That didn’t, however, answer the question of where in the hell was Kakashi?

Itachi’s eyes flickered about, taking in the partially destroyed house, the spot where Sakura and Potter had last stood and final sweeping over Naruto crouched tense behind Sasuke. “You do not need such useless things, little brother,” he announced.

Sasuke breathed in deeply through his nose and lowered himself into his next stance. He wouldn’t attack blindly, like Naruto. He would be calm, methodical, as he drained the life out of his brother. Things were different now, he couldn’t afford to be as reckless as he once was, as he had started this fight. Sakura and Potter were waiting for them.

“I don’t need anything,” he agreed with a sneer. “But I won’t let you take them away, either. Not this time.”

There was a moment of silence as his brother stared at him. Then Naruto’s loud grating voice rang out, dispelling any attempts by Itachi to control the conversation. “Damn right we ain’t going to let ya!” he yelled out. Sasuke did not have to turn to know the idiot was grinning manically. That grin was slightly more intimidating now that Naruto had the power to back it up. It was still annoying. Except when it wasn’t. Like when it added to the annoyance of Sasuke’s brother. Then it was acceptable. Because regardless of how this fight ended, Potter was already safely evacuated and Uchiha Itachi had failed.

His brother’s thoughts seemed to be moving along the same line. With a faint sneer of his upper lip, he quickly lost the kunai he had been using and brought his hands together in the beginning of a seal.

The tone of the battle had just sharply shifted.

The neighborhood would be lucky if any of the houses were left standing once this was through.

Sasuke darted left, separating himself from Naruto, making them two targets instead of one and giving himself some space to work his own jutsus in. It would be a battle of who knew the largest number of jutsus and who could use them the most creatively. His katana was quickly slipped back into its sheath and his own hands started to form the first seal.

“Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!”

Right. Uzumaki Naruto was not exactly known for his variety of jutsus.

Sasuke shifted his focus. Destroying that many clones diverted the power of an enemy’s attack. With multiple targets, it decreased one’s ability to focus power into a single thrust. One’s defenses went up, however, in response to an increased number of threats. If he could limit Itachi’s mobility – and Sasuke knew exactly which ground jutsu to use for that.

He, apparently, was not the only one. The ground shook violently, then split suddenly down the middle. Itachi leaped backwards as Naruto’s clones struggled to adapt to the new terrain. Several of them poofed out of existence. For a moment, the rest milled about in confusion, before surging toward their original target with the kind of single minded determination that was characteristic of their maker.

Something within the large crevasse shifted and suddenly gushed forward. It almost looked like – sand. Except the texture was wrong and the smell was distinctly soil. It surged forward, however, in a manner very reminiscent, searching out for its target.

Sasuke would have to find a way to force Kakashi to let him see the seals for it. The older man had carefully kept himself out of view this time, and Sasuke suspected that where ever the jutsu came from, few people knew of it.

A brief game of cat and mouse then proceeded. Itachi would move left and the wave of dirt would follow quickly. He’d jump back and it moved with him. He managed to destroy two more of Naruto’s clones by moving so that they were between him and the blanket of soil that followed him relentlessly.

It was pushing him back, away from the damaged house and out into the street.

Then something unexpected happened. One moment it was just the three of them visible on the street, Kakashi still carefully hidden somewhere he could attack from without being seen. And then two bursts of energy crackled into being only yards away, followed closely by another three. It had the feel and taste of chakra but it wasn’t any jutsu he could recognize and it blinded his eyes. For one brief moment there was light like he’d never seen before, light that flickered and moved in ways it shouldn’t, in colors that didn’t exist and the pain of it all sent him staggering.

For a moment he felt terror. He couldn’t see. He stood rooted to the spot, one hand clutching uselessly at the side of his head and he couldn’t see.

“Sauske-teme!” Naruto shouted out before colliding with his back. Arms wrapped around his torso, pinning his arms, pulling him to the side. He would have panicked if it hadn’t smelt all too much of Naruto. And his sight was returning. Slowly – far too slowly – but he could see light again, peppered by annoying colored spots that shifted constantly. Naruto had yanked him to the side, moving both of them back towards the limited shelter of a gutted car. He kept one hand on Sasuke’s shoulder, simultaneously keeping him standing and keeping him in place.

Sasuke jerked his head around and had to grit his teeth as a fresh wave of vertigo hit him and his vision flashed out again momentarily. He had to see – he had to see!

Itachi was gone.

“Come on, teme,” Naruto was saying as he dug through his pack with one hand. “Time to get the hell out of here.”

Itachi wasn’t standing were he last was. If Sasuke’s sight was affected so badly, then it stood to reason Itachi’s was as well. Sasuke pulled against Naruto’s grip on his shoulder and searched desperately. Where? Where, where, where?

But all he could see were the ruins left behind. The partially destroyed house, the multiple wrecked cars, the burnt and torn and mutilated yard. No sign of Itachi. Not even a sign of Kakashi, but Sasuke trusted the other man could take care of himself.

Naruto was unraveling the transportation scroll, struggling to wrap it around both of them.

Someone was coming.

Sasuke twisted his head around at the last moment, but it wasn’t Itachi. Just a scar-faced old man and a young woman with purple hair. Running towards them, shouting. Civilians. Sasuke closed his burning, leaking eyes. They didn’t matter. Team 7 had succeeded in their mission. He had succeeded in his. It certainly wasn’t the victory that Sasuke had wanted. He hadn’t had the pleasure of burying his arm up to the elbow within Itachi’s ribcage. But it would have to be enough.

Harry Potter was alive. And Uchiha Sasuke was going to keep him that way.


	7. Making Connections - Interlude 2

* * *

The cul-de-sac at the end of Privet Dr. was a familiar one to Remus. It was a prime location for Apparating into or out of the area. There was a grove of trees just beyond it that separated the neighborhood from a busy street beyond. No one went into them. It was noisy, and the fumes from the passing cars aggravated both throat and eyes. This incidental privacy made it easy to slip in and out unnoticed.

Remus didn’t have time to care about whether some muggle would see him this time. Once the world stopped spinning and his stomach stop feeling like it was trying to be ripped out, he had his legs moving. It was two long blocks to Number 4. Roughly 14 houses between him and Harry. A five minute walk he needed to cross in seconds.

Something exploded down the street and Remus felt his heart jump. Tonks was two steps behind him, cursing up a storm even as they both pushed their bodies to move faster. The wards wouldn’t let them Apparate in closer. They’d have to cover the distance on foot.

The road curved gently. A sudden gust of wind billowed dust towards them. There was debris in the road three houses out. Chunks of dirt and grass, shattered glass, fragments of wood. Someone was screaming.

One long stride took him over the curb. He ran across the yards, sticking close to the houses, wand out, ready for whatever may come.

Someone was screaming and Remus could only hope it wasn’t Harry. Only hope there wasn’t too many of them for him and Tonks to take. Only hope back-up was on its way.

There were no Death Eaters standing in the yard of Number 4, Privet Drive. There was a man in a red and black rob, his face turned away from the house, one hand clutching at his face over his eyes. And then he was gone. It wasn’t Apparation. There was no Apparating within the wards. And it didn’t have the distinct pop of apparition, nor the vague feeling of something having suddenly disappeared. The man was simply gone.

Remus jerked his eyes away from the empty spot (there was no Apparating from within the wards!) and quickly scanned what was left of the Dursley’s front yard. It wasn’t empty.

Two boys grappled together in the yard. The blond was trying to hold the other, yelling at him the whole time in a language Remus had never heard. For one confused moment, Remus though the other boy was Harry. He was about the right size, black hair – but he wasn’t wearing the baggy jeans and overly large t-shirts Harry always had on. And the hair wasn’t right. It was black, but it didn’t flick up randomly the way Harry’s always did. Where Harry was thin, this boy was sinewy. Once he knew it wasn’t the young man he was so desperately hoping to find, the rest of the differences were very clear.

Then the boy’s face jerked around and eyes as red as blood fixed on his own.

For a moment they stared at each other, as Tonks went rushing by, and then the blond boy wrapped something about the two of them and just as suddenly as the other man, they were both gone. Leaving nothing behind but crushed metal, broken windows and gouged earth.

“Harry,” Remus whispered, before darting forward again. Tonks had pulled ahead of him and was already fighting her way into the house. Much of the front of the house had been wrecked. The front door was knocked off its hinges, the windows all shattered and part of the wall completely removed. The stability of the house would have to be checked. Later. Without hesitation, Tonks was pushing her way through, climbing over fallen beams and crunching through shattered glass.

“Harry?” she called out. “Harry!”

Remus climbed over what remained of a couch. “Upstairs,” he panted, already reaching for the railing. The steps, thankfully, were still intact.

Tonks nodded. “I’ll check down here.”

Climbing the steps was almost as terrible as the long run from the Apparition point. The distance truly was not that long. It was the hope and fear of what laid at the end. There had been no sign of Harry. Those people had looked nothing like Death Eaters, or any other wizard Remus had ever seen before. It was entirely possible that young Harry was still alive and well, safely hidden within the walls of his mother’s sister’s house.

It took Remus a moment to remember which door before he flung it open, wand out, Harry’s name on his lips.

Hedwig screamed shrilly. The rest of the room was silent. And empty.

No Harry. Not even a sign of a struggle.

It was suddenly difficult to breath. This was far too familiar. The wreckage, the empty house, no loved one, no friend, no innocent child that never should have been involved in this.

“Remus?”

He was leaning against the door frame. He couldn’t remember when it had started, but his legs would not support him. He turned his head slowly. He could still see down the stairs – see Tonks balanced at the bottom, standing shakily atop the broken remains of the muggle house. The sunlight streamed in behind her, lighting hair gone deathly gray.

“Petunia Dursley’s hidden in the bathroom. I can’t get a word of sense out of her, Remus.” She bit her lip and stared up at him. “He’s not down here.”

Remus turned away to stare lifelessly at the child’s room. “He’s gone.”


	8. Making Connections - Day 1 Part 3

* * *

The jutsu back home felt a little like getting caught in a whirlpool.  Naruto squeezed his eyes shut, tightened his grip on Sasuke and hoped whatever was happening to them wouldn’t kill them.  Tsunade-ba-chan had given them these scrolls, so he had to trust in that.  But he was sure glad they didn’t rely on any chakra control on his part.  He’d probably fry his and Sasuke-teme’s butts and Sakura would never forgive him for it.

            He did not want to think about Sasuke’s screams or the way he had been clutching at his eyes as if they were melting out of their very sockets.

            Nope.  Wasn’t thinking about that.

            The warmth and flood of sealed chakra started to recede.  Naruto had just found something solid once more under his feet before he was pulled down by dead weight.  “Oof!” Naruto grunted as the air was knocked out of him.  Damn but the teme was heavy!  “Oi, Sasuke!  Sasuke-teme!  You better be alive, asshole,” he muttered as he stared up at the forest canopy above.

            Damn it was good to be home.

            The air was wetter but not as hot.  There was no humming noise here in the forest.  Just the sounds of birds and squirrels and the smell of leaves and dirt.  Familiar.  The kind of thing he could taste, hear and feel.

            Naruto glanced down.  “Oi!”  He poked the dark lump half laying on him.  “You broken?”  Naruto frowned.  “You better not be pissed at me for pulling us out of there.  I had to.  Look, I’m sorry, but everything was going to hell.  Sasuke?  Hey, man, you okay?”  Naruto poked him again.

            “I will - break - your hand - dobe,” a strained voice hissed.

            Just like an angry cat.  Naruto smirked broadly.  “Then get your heavy ass off me, teme,” he replied before giving the other teen a “helpful” shove.

            Sasuke didn’t say anything.  He rolled onto his knees and tucked his head down to the ground.

            Naruto blinked and sat up quickly.  “You okay?”

            For several long heartbeats there was nothing but the soothing familiar sounds of the forest.  Sasuke was breathing slowly but heavily.  “Whatever happened – back there – caused a very – very bright light.”  Sasuke inhaled slowly but didn’t lift his head.  “I assume – you didn’t see it.”

            “Was this before or after I heroically rescued – ”

            Sasuke _growled_.

            “Okay, okay!” Naruto relented, holding up his hands defensively and laughing.  “I mean, no, I didn’t.  Felt something weird, but it didn’t hurt or anything.”  Naruto hesitated for a moment.  “You going to be okay?”

            “Yes.”

            Uh huh.  “Sometime this week?”

            Sasuke-teme uncurled enough to lash out with one fist.  Naruto ducked and laughed back.  “Well, if you’re not dying, teme, then hurry up and get up.  We need to find Sakura-chan and Harry.”

            Sasuke’s whole body tensed before slowly easing.  His head shifted and his dark eyes fixed on Naruto’s.  They were red and puffy, tears leaking out the sides as he blinked, grimaced and clearly struggled to focus. 

            Damn.  Whatever that weird jutsu back there was, it apparently really did a number on Sasuke-teme’s eyes.  Now was definitely a time to be grateful he didn’t have any freaky eye blood-limit.

            “Where?”

            “Huh?”  Naruto blinked.  Sasuke-teme’s glare was familiar and creepy-level intense.

            “Sakura and Potter.  Where are they?”

            “Oh! Um, heading towards Konoha, I think.”  Sakura had gotten back before them, so it made sense that she would.  He wasn’t sure where Kakashi-sensei had gotten to, however.  If he’d had his sharrigan uncovered, then he was probably as messed up as Sasuke-teme was.  Not that Naruto was too worried about him.  Knowing Kakashi-sensei, they’d find him waiting for them along the path back to Konoha, reading one of his stupid books.

            Naruto scooted back and watched as Sasuke-teme slowly push himself up to his feet.  If it had been Sakura-chan, he would have eagerly offered to help. But since it was Sasuke-teme, and he didn’t feel like getting punched, he managed to keep his mouth shut.  It wasn’t an easy thing for him.  Especially with the way Sasuke was moving like he was some kind of little old man.

            Instead, Naruto jumped to his feet, jammed his hands into his pockets and grinned like a loon.  “I can’t wait to see what Harry’s like,” Naruto said quickly.  It seemed like a darn good topic to talk about.  “Though he did seem a little too much like you, you know.”  He made sure to glare at Sasuke-teme critically.  “I sure hope he’s not as stuck-up as you.  I’d hate to have to beat some sense into him.”

            Sasuke’s head jerked around and he stumbled slightly.  “You will not touch him,” Sasuke hissed.

            “Hey!  Hey!  Hey!  Calm down, man!” Naruto replied quickly.  “He’s a civilian!  Fighting with a civilian just wouldn’t be fair.  I know that.  I was just saying, you know.  What I mean is - I know we’re all going to get along and everything.  No matter what.”

            Sasuke-teme glared at him.  Naruto didn’t look away, but he couldn’t help yanking his hands out of his pockets before shoving them back in just a moment later.

            Finally Sasuke’s shoulders relaxed and he turned away.  For one surreal moment they both stood still, Sasuke with his back to Naruto.  “Thank you.”

            Naruto grinned from ear to ear.  “Come on, man, what are teammates for?” he cried out cheerfully.  “Now let’s go find Harry and the beautiful Sakura-chan and go home and get some ramen!”

            Sasuke-teme shoved him into a tree.  “No.”

 

* * *

 

            Sakura hadn’t gotten far.  It wasn’t long before Sasuke and Naruto were coming up on them.  But the short walk gave Sasuke enough time to get his breathing under control, and more importantly, to get his eyes to stop leaking.  The burning remained, but dulled to the level that he could stand to have them open.

            There didn’t seem to be any permanent damage.  The feeling that that knowledge invoked went beyond relief.  The alternative didn’t bare thinking about. 

            And for once, he’d been able to do more than just survive yet another encounter with his brother – he’d managed to prevent him from succeeding in his self-imposed mission.  The victory of that made his very limbs tingle.

            Once Sasuke’s sight stabilized, they picked up speed.  Sakura was traveling with a civilian (his cousin!) so she ought to be easy to overtake.  Sasuke leaped lightly up into the next tree, Naruto by his side without a moment of hesitation.  Several trees later and they could see Sakura’s pink hair.  A few leaps later and they landed in a tree just ahead of her.

            Sakura glanced up at them, clearly knowing exactly where they were, and smiled at them.  Naruto waved back.  Sasuke took the moment to study his cousin once more.

            He was alive.  That was nice start.  There was something about his face that was at least vaguely familiar, despite all the differences.  The hair was obvious.  There was a reason most Uchiha kept their hair long.  It had a tendency when short to stick out in every direction.  The eyes were a little jarring, however.  Not even Sakura had eyes so green.  No Uchiha had had such eyes before.  It was doubtful that he would ever develop the sharrigan.

            It would be a blessing if it would keep Itachi away from him, but that was unlikely.

            It took only a second for Sasuke to absorb all of that before he stepped off the branch beneath him.  He landed on the ground silently.  It took Potter a moment to react, the kind of delay that would get a ninja killed but that was typical of a civilian.  Potter stumbled back and Sakura moved instantly to stabilize him.

            Sasuke frowned.  “What’s wrong?”

            Sakura checked Potter over quickly before stepping away.  She turned to Sasuke with her calm professional expression in place.  “He’s fine.  The chakra overflow of the scroll seems to be affecting him badly, but it will go away.  What’s wrong with your eyes?” she asked quickly, her own eyes narrowing as she studied his face.

            Sasuke waved her off.  “It’s fine.  We’ll discuss it later.  What happened with the scroll?”

            Sakura sighed and glanced at Naruto.  Neither of them was subtle about their silent conversation concerning his eyes.  Sasuke wasn’t a fool.  He understood that whatever had happened back there needed to be discussed – later. 

            Potter was standing up straighter now, staring at them from behind thick blocky glasses.  His face was pale and pinched in discomfort.  It gave Sasuke an idea of how he himself must look.  Potter didn’t seem incapacitated, however, simply queasy.  There was nothing dull in his eyes, just confusion as he glanced back and forth between the three of them.

            It made Sasuke feel a little queasy thinking of how they were going to explain everything.  The topics involved were not issues he enjoyed discussing, but there would be no way to avoid it.  He shouldn’t be weak enough to let it bother him.

            Naruto and Sakura seemed to have finished their assessment of Sasuke’s condition.  Naruto came sliding over next to Sasuke, grinning like an idiot.  “Oi! Oi! Harry-kun, you wanna get ramen right?  Tell Sasuke-teme – I mean – Sasuke here that we ought to get ramen.”

            Sasuke resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he watched Potter’s confused expression.  “In English, dobe,” he reminded his teammate.

            Naruto blinked.  “Eh?”

            Sakura thwapped him upside the head good naturedly – which for her meant the other ninja only stumbled to the ground instead of going flying into a tree.  “Switch back to English, Naruto!  Potter-san can’t understand you yet.”  She turned to Potter with a bright smile and bowed slightly.  “I apologize for that, Potter-san,” she continued in English.  “It’s still much easier for us to communicate in our own language, but we’ll try to use English for now.”

            Potter nodded very slowly in response.  “What happened?” he asked hesitantly before glancing cautiously at Sasuke.  “Are you all alright?”

            Naruto bounced back immediately, with a laugh and a bright smile.  “Yeah!  We’re just fine!  We’re just really glad you’re okay!”

            Potter managed a small smile for Naruto, his eyes still shifting nervously from one of them to another.  “Thanks, I guess.”  Potter sighed and rubbed at his forehead.  “Look, what the hell is going on here?  I think I deserve an explanation.  Now.”

            Sasuke glanced over at Sakura carefully.  She shrugged her shoulders.  “It wasn’t my place to tell him.  I thought it was the kind of thing that would be better covered once we were all back in Konoha,” she explained to Sasuke, sticking with English like she’s promised Potter.

            “I don’t think I can put up with waiting any longer,” Potter snapped back.  “You all show up at my Aunt’s house out of no where, demanding I go with you and blowing up Aunt Petunia’s entire lawn!  Do you realize how much trouble I’m going to be in for this?  And who the hell was that?” Potter sucked in another breath before glaring at each of them.  He still looked sickly, but he stood up straight, one hand clenching spastically in his pocket.

            “We had to come and get you!” Naruto immediately exclaimed. 

            “Naruto!’ Sasuke snapped sharply.  He didn’t need the dobe sticking his foot in this.  It was Sasuke’s mission, he’d handle explaining this to his cousin.  “That man,” he started slowly, managing not to stick on those simple words more than he should.  “That man is a criminal, responsible for the murder of an entire clan from our village.  He has targeted you, for reasons that are too complicated to explain out here.  I am afraid you have no choice, Potter-san.  That man will not stop until you are dead.  Bringing you here was the only option.”

            “For how long?” Potter demanded.

            Sasuke frowned.  “What do you mean?”

            “How long?” Potter replied slowly.  “I need to go home!  Do you have any idea how much they’re going to freak out after that?  You blew up the whole yard!”

            “Itachi did some of that!” Naruto yelled back before Sasuke could silence him.  Sakura helpfully punched him for Sasuke.

            “Itachi?” Potter repeated.

            Sasuke grimaced.  “That man.”

            “Oh.”  Potter stared at Sasuke and Sasuke carefully kept his eyes directed just over the other teen’s shoulder.  After a moment, Potter sighed.  “Can I go back now?”

            “No,” Sasuke answered.

            Sakura shifted uncomfortably beside him as they both watched Potter’s expression darken.  “We would return you, Potter-san, if it was safe.  Please understand, Itachi will just come after you again if you go back.”

            “So what am I supposed to do now?  Stay here forever?” Potter exclaimed.

            “Sure!” Naruto chimed in.  Sakura swung at him again and he ducked away.

            Sasuke ignored both of them and hoped Potter would as well.  “Just until I kill that man.”

            Potter stared at him.  “This is bloody insane,” he muttered after a long moment.

            “I promise I will protect you from that man,” Sasuke replied immediately, clenching his fists and swearing it completely within himself. 

            For once, Naruto stayed quiet.  Sakura hovered close near by.  And Potter slowly nodded.  “Promise you’ll explain what the hell’s going on – fully explain everything.  If you do that, then I guess we can figure out something, right?  I mean, I am glad I wasn’t blown to little bits back there, and I get how that’s thanks to all of you.  But I do need to go home.  I can’t stay here.  You know that, right?”

            “Why not?”  Naruto whined.  “We want you to stay!”

            Potter blinked, then smiled suddenly.  His face relaxed.  “Again, thanks, I think.  But I really, really, really need to go back home.”

            “After Itachi is dead,” Sasuke insisted.  “It would be suicide to return before then.”

            Potter sighed.  “I’m not to sure about that or any of this.  I think you need to explain some things.  A lot of things.”

            Sasuke nodded sharply.  That was good enough for him.  He had no intention of letting his cousin out of his sight, even if he had to hold the other young man against his will.  He had no qualms about doing anything necessary.  “Not here,” he continued.  “It’s too open out here.  We’ll wait till we’re back within the village walls, agreed?”

            “And we can ask Tsunade-sama about what went wrong with the scroll!” Sakura added.

            “And I bet ero-sensei can do something to teach you how to talk!”  Naruto cheered.  “I mean, how to talk like us!  It’ll be great!”

Potter winced and Sasuke felt sorry for him.  Exposure to the #1 loudest ninja in Konoha could be a trying experience for anyone.  “Come on, before the idiot says something else stupid.”

“Teme!”

“Shut up, dobe,” Sasuke snapped back, turning away and starting to make his way back home. 

“Are they always like this?” he could hear Potter whisper to Sakura.

 

* * *

 

            When they said village, Harry had been expecting something similar to Hogsmeade.  Something quaint and old fashion the way all wizarding villages seemed to be.  These people might not be wizards, but they definitely knew something about magic.  So it stood to reason they’d have other things in common.

            The towering walls of Konoha came as a surprise.

            “Whoa.”

            The blond, Naruto, grinned wildly from beside him.  “Awesome, isn’t it?”

            Harry just nodded.  It was something alright.  The doors looked like something out of King Kong.  But were they supposed to keep something out or something in?  Harry craned his neck back to see the men pacing silently above.  Those were definitely guards.  It reminded Harry of the year dementors were stationed outside of Hogwarts.  What kind of village had guards stationed outside all the time?  Harry’s fingers tightened once more around his wand hidden safely in his pocket.  He suddenly didn’t feel so sure about this.  He shouldn’t be here.  This was not good.

            “Ramen!  Ramen!  Ramen!” Naruto chanted as they walked along.

            Without a plan, however, Harry doubted that he’d manage to escape.  The sheer speed he’d witnessed earlier still made his eyes ache in memory of trying to follow all of it.  Harry was fast, but not that fast.  And so while he was confident that a couple of well placed spells would disable his companions, it wouldn’t do him any good if they moved faster than he could aim.  If they had been Death Eaters he would have taken the chance and hope to defeat at least one of them.  But Sakura-chan said that they were trying to help him, and Naruto was hard to dislike.

            Harry wanted to trust them.  He really did, even though he logically knew he shouldn’t.  Constant vigilance, and all that.  But they hadn’t done anything to threaten him and may have perhaps even saved him.

Naruto danced a few steps ahead of the rest of them.  “Come on!” he cried impatiently.  “Ramen!”

Sakura sighed and followed after him.  “We have to report in first, Naruto.”

The blond scowled.  “Then let’s hurry up and see the old hag – then we get ramen!  Harry hasn’t had Ichiraku’s before!”

The two of them drifted closer to those looming walls as Harry’s pace slowed.  His somewhat flimsy plan of playing along for now was about to be severely tested.  Once he followed them in, he suspected he’d never have such a good chance to escape as he did now.  And while he wanted to know what the bloody hell was going on, getting home was also pretty important.

“Keep walking.”

Harry flinched and darted his eyes over to stare at the final member of this little group.  Sakura had introduced him as Sasuke.  The boy with red eyes.  Except now they weren’t.  Now his eyes were dark and emotionless.  It wasn’t that much of an improvement.  Everything about the other boy screamed Slytherin and dark wizard to Harry.  The subtle intimidation was enough to make Harry stubborn.

He held the other teen’s gaze with determination until Sasuke shifted his eyes away.  “It’s not safe out here,” he said so quietly that Harry barely heard him.  There was nothing soft about his tone, however.  The order hidden beneath it was still quiet clear.

So much for any change of plans.  Harry sighed and turned to follow the others.  He really, really hoped he wasn’t going to regret this.

“Oi!  Harry!” Naruto exclaimed, suddenly appearing at Harry’s side.  “Do you like ramen?  Huh?  Huh?  Huh?”

Harry managed not to finch back in surprise.  Maybe he was getting used to it already.  “Ramen?”  Harry was familiar with the stuff.  If the Dursley’s went out to eat, Ramen was all he was allowed to eat.  The cheap instant noodles weren’t terrible, but he didn’t think he’d ever been as excited about them as Naruto appeared to be.  “It’s fine,” he replied carefully.

Naruto actually pouted.  “Ramen isn’t just fine!  Ramen is great!  And Ichiraku’s ramen is the best!”

Harry smiled a little and shook his head.  “Isn’t all ramen essentially the same?  I mean, I know they make different flavors and everything, but it all tastes the same to me.”  Harry glanced over to see that Naruto was no longer walking beside him but had stopped in the middle of the road.  “What is it?”

“All ramen…the same?” Naruto repeated back in a shaking voice.  “Impossible.  Impossible!”  Naruto darted forward and grabbed Harry’s hand.  “We need to get you to Ichiraku’s right away!”  He turned to Sakura.  “Ne?  Please?  I mean, this is an emergency!”

“Naruto!” Sakura snapped back.  “Ramen does not count as an emergency!”

“But - ”

“No!”  She stomped one foot and the ground beneath them trembled ominously.

Harry smiled and slowly laughed a little.  It was so reminiscent of Hermonie, he couldn’t help it.  If only Ron obeyed her word as well as Naruto did Sakura’s.

Sakura glanced over at him and smiled tentatively.

“Come on,” Sasuke interrupted.  He moved passed the three of them.  He led the way down the dirt road.  Inside the towering walls, the buildings resembled more of what Harry had expected.  They were small and stacked close together.  Some had potted plants out front.  Others had open balconies with clothes hung out to dry.  Other than the wires running crisscross overhead, there was a noticeable lack of technology everywhere he looked.

It was odd, but that tight nervous tension deep in his gut seemed to almost loosen a little.

“The Hokage tower is just a little farther this way,” Sakura informed him as they walked along behind Sasuke.

“Hokage?” Harry asked.

Sakura smiled at him.  “The leader of out village.”

“And the strongest ninja in the whole village!” Naruto added.

“Oh,” Harry replied.  “And he gets his own tower?”

Naruto found something he said entertaining and started to snicker.  “Something like that,” he replied mysteriously.

 

* * *

 

The tower was more of a small multi-storied building.  It was painted with bright colors and had a large Japanese style symbol displayed near the top.  
            Harry’s three “tour guides” led him through the front door.  Several people in gray uniforms or green army vests were in the hallways and a couple of them called out cheerful greetings to Sakura-chan.  Several others seemed to be avoiding both Naruto and Sasuke.  Many of them stared at Harry.  Several stairways latter, they arrived at a set of double doors flanked by two more men in gray uniforms.

One of them grinned at them.  The man greeted them but none of it was in any language Harry could understand.  Naruto replied back enthusiastically.  Harry listened in a daze.  He let his eyes wander about the hallway as he waited.  There wasn’t much to look at even though everything was painted bold red or other strong colors.  He shifted to look around some more as Sakura-chan exchanged her greetings and found Sasuke staring at him.  Again.

What did he think Harry was going to try to run away now?

“What?” Harry asked sharply.  The conversation around him suddenly stopped as everyone turned to stare at him, then at Sasuke.

“Ah,” Sakura-chan interjected quickly.  “We ought to go on in, Potter-san,” she announced in English.  She nodded to the guards before gently pushing open one of the double doors.  “Hokage-sama?” she called out as they followed her in. 

The room was a spacious office, in the same colors as the hallway.  It was probably the biggest office he had ever seen.  The professors’ offices back home were often cluttered with ancient heavy tomes and curious magical artifacts.  While there were some bookshelves and a couple of plush red sofas pushed against the walls, the large center of the room was empty.  
            Across the room, before panoramic open windows, was a large wooden desk covered in scrolls and papers.  That was a little more familiar.  The blond, scowling woman behind the desk wasn’t.  Harry stared in shock then blushed immediately.  Did she have to dress like that?  It was way too distracting.  Could that even be natural?  He blushed even more and looked away quickly.

Someone started chuckling.

Harry risked glancing up briefly.  He hadn’t even noticed the man standing beside the desk.  He’d been so distracted by the woman’s…. but there was someone else there, staring at him and clearly laughing at him even though more than half of the man’s face was covered.

“Kakashi-sensei!” Naruto cried out happily before pointing at him accusingly.  “Where the hell have you been?”

The man was covered in dirt and what Harry feared was blood.  The orange book in his hand, however, was spotless.  He turned one page slowly.  “Mah, I was trying to get this cat out of this tree but it didn’t want to go and it scratched -”

“Liar!” both Sakura-chan and Naruto shouted, violently startling Harry.  He stared at the three of them wide eyed before looking to Sasuke.  Somebody here had to be sane, right?  But Sasuke was staring at the silver haired man with an intensity that was anything but.

“Settle down!” the woman ordered sharply in English.  Everyone’s eyes snapped to her, even Harry’s before he blushed again.  The woman glared at all of them before leaning back in her chair.  “Hatake!” she barked out.  “Take the boy and get this language thing worked out.”  She scowled.  “I’m not going to waste my time trying to explain this in English.”

Kakashi-sensei straightened up, and without putting his book away or giving any other indication of having heard her, strode towards Harry.

“What?” Harry asked.

“Yes, yes, this way, poor little confused walking target-practice,” the man replied, eyes never leaving his book.  Without further explanation, he grabbed the back of Harry’s collar and tugged him to the door.  Harry immediately tried to twist free.  No matter how much he tried to pull away, however, the large man’s grip never loosened.  Within seconds he found himself once more out in the hallway.  Naruto’s chipper “See ya latter, Harry!” ringing in his ears.

“This way, this way!” Kakashi-sensei called out cheerfully before yanking Harry along once more.

Harry scowled as he tried not to trip.  Being jerked around by his collar wasn’t making that easy.  He reached up awkwardly and tried to pry himself free.  “I can walk on my own, you know.  You don’t have to drag me along,” he growled out.

The tall man chuckled.  “Oh no, we wouldn’t want you to accidentally wander off, now would we?  Sasuke-kun would be very unhappy with me if I let something like that happened.  No, no, much better to keep you close at hand, no?”

Harry frowned in confusion.  “Huh?”  Why would Sasuke care?

“Oh, look!  We’re here!” Kakashi-sensei announced before yanking Harry into a dark room.

Harry blinked rapidly at the sudden change.  There were no windows in here, only four candles lit and arranged in a circle.  The rest of the room was lost in darkness except for that circle.  After blinking several times, he could see lines and symbols drawn within that circle.  Harry suddenly felt the blood drain from his face.  Harry didn’t need to know anything about ancient runes to recognize a ritual when he saw one.  He’d seen enough of them to know one when he did.  Nothing good ever came of rituals.  Harry backed away quickly, reaching behind him blindly for the door.

Kakashi-sensei grabbed him by the arm firmly, but surprisingly without hurting him.  “Calm down,” Kakashi-sensei said quietly, without any of the silliness of before.  “I’m sure Sakura-chan explained that we are not going to hurt you.  It’s for a language jutsu.  I copied it from Jiraiya when he performed it on my team before we left to get you.  It’s hardly perfect, but you have my word that it will not harm you.  Do you understand?”

Standing in near darkness, only able to hear the man’s voice, but not see him – it should have been more disturbing.  But it wasn’t.  “A language what?” Harry asked faintly. 

The hand slipped away from Harry’s arm and Kakashi-sensei drifted away from him and into the soft glow.  “A language jutsu.  It’s a very complicated piece of chakra control with long-term effects.  The results are not uniform and it will give you a headache,” Kakashi-sensei said with a preposterous grin.  “Just until you start to adjust more naturally.  I’m sure that Sakura-chan will be more than willing to fix that for you.  The affects are typically enough to trick your perceptions into understanding the basics of the spoken language.  You’ll have to learn the rest the normal way.”

It was a lot to take in.  Harry frowned as he tried to work through all of it.  It didn’t sound harmful.  The headaches, he suspected, would not be fun, but they were probably unavoidable.  “Your English is very good,” he complimented absently.

The man’s eye was crinkled as if he was smiling broadly.  Not that Harry could tell.  The man looked like he was wearing a sock over the lower half of his face.  “Jiraiya-sama demonstrated this jutsu on myself and my cute little team.”

Grown men shouldn’t call things cute.  Especially when they were dressed like commandos.  Harry glanced at the circle then back at the man.  “What do I have to do?”

The man clapped happily then pointed at the center of the circle.  “You stand there and I do the rest.  It’s a variation of genjutsu.  As long as you don’t use a kai, it ought to remain in place.”

Harry was stepping carefully around the lines and funny looking symbols written on the floor.  “What does genjutsu mean?” he asked, stumbling over the word.  “And what the heck is a kai?”

“Nothing, nothing.  Nothing at all,” the man cheerfully dismissed his concerns.  He clasped his hands together in front of him, his fingers folded intricately into what looked like nothing more than a painful looking knot.  “Now just stand still…” he cackled.  
 

* * *

 

“Kakashi has already been debriefed on what happened,” Tsunade-sama announced once Harry was removed from the room.  “I still expect written reports from each of you.”  She paused for a moment.  “Give them to Shizune.  I’ve got enough paperwork.”  Her eyes narrowing as she observed the scrolls already stacked on her desk.  Her eyes then snapped back to the three of them.  “Uchiha!” she barked.  “Get over here.”

Sasuke hesitated for just a split second, just long enough for it to be clear to Sakura that his pride balked at being ordered about like a dog, before he hurried to obey the command of his Hokage.

She waved him over to her side of the desk and made an impatient sound until he stepped close enough.  “I assume you inspected his eyes already, Sakura?”

Sasuke scowled.  “I’m fine,” he growled.

“I could find no obvious damage,” Sakura answered quickly.

“Hm, neither could I, but Kakashi is somewhat of a special case.  Hold still, brat,” she said before beginning her own examination.

“Ba-chan?” Naruto suddenly piped up.  He drifted closer to her desk, hands shoved in his pockets and his eyes slyly fixed on Sasuke.  “What happened to Kakashi-sensei?  I mean, where was he?  He was there one moment helping us save Harry-kun, then he just disappeared.  He wasn’t there to help us fight Itachi at all!”

“Not everyone’s as blatant in their activities as you, Naruto!” Tsunade-sama replied.  “And what’s the matter, brat?  Can’t fight your own battles?”  Sasuke started to sneer in response, but Tsunade-sama just rolled her eyes.  “You’re both alive and in one piece.  It can’t have been too bad.”

“But if Kakashi-sensei wasn’t with Sasuke-kun and Naruto,” Sakura commented with a frown.  “Then where was he?”

Tsunade-sama shot Sakura a quick hidden glare before flicking her eyes back to Sasuke.  “You seem fine.  Just don’t do anything stupid in the next few days.  I want the blood vessels around your eyes to rest some.  Do you understand, Uchiha?  If you blind yourself through carelessness, I’m not even going to try to heal you.”

“I know how to care for myself,” Sasuke snapped back before hastily moving away from her desk.  Something inside Sakura finally completely let go.  If Tsunade-sama cleared both Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke-kun, then they must be okay.

“I want a verbal report from you, Sakura,” Tsunade-sama unexpectedly announced.  “On Harry Potter.”

Sakura hesitated as she gathered her thoughts.  She wasn’t sure what Tsunade-sama expected out of her specifically, but it was clear Tsunade-sama was looking for something.  It wasn’t a casual question.

Sasuke cut her off, however, before she could even begin to formulate an answer.  “The transportation jutsu made him sick.  Why?”

Tsunade-sama frowned in irritation at having her conversation interrupted, but shifted her eyes between Sakura and Sasuke.  “What’s this?” she asked.

“Potter-san had a negative reaction to the jutsu,” Sakura explained.  “Weakness, headache and nausea all presented.  It took him several minutes to recover enough to stand.  Half an hour walking passed before he seemed to fully recover.  As far as I know, he suffered no injuries during the battle.”

Tsunade-sama leaned forward and folded her hands in front of her face.  “Interesting.  I’ve never heard of such a reaction to an external chakra source like that.  Keep him under supervision, Sakura, and report any changes immediately.  The medical records of his father were destroyed by the Uchiha, so we won’t know if there’s any kind of abnormal development.”

Sakura watched Sasuke scowl furiously, but he said nothing.  “Yes, ma’am,” she answered.

“What else?” Tsunade-sama demanded.

“Excuse me, Hokage-sama?”

“What else can you report about this Harry Potter?”

“He seems real nice!” Naruto replied enthusiastically.  “We’re going to get ramen after this, so can you hurry this up, Ba-chan?”

Tsunade-sama threw a scroll at him.  “Sakura?”

She still felt uncomfortable talking about Harry with Sasuke-kun standing right there, but Naruto’s little outburst took some of the tension out of the room.  Sasuke’s stance had relaxed just slightly as Naruto complained.  Sakura shut her eyes and took a deep breath.  When she opened them, she was very careful not to look at Sasuke.  “He seems to be relatively calm about the whole situation.  He wants to go home, however.  He repeated that several times.  Insistently.  He doesn’t trust us.”

“Why not?” Naruto objected.  He’d paused in his antics just long enough to look horrified at the idea.  “He’s Sasuke-teme’s cousin!  We saved him!  How can he not trust us?”

“He doesn’t know that he’s Sasuke-kun’s cousin,” Sakura reminded him.

“We’ll correct that shortly,” Tsunade-sama assured them.  “Is there nothing else I should know about Potter?”

Sakura kept her face carefully neutral.  “Were you expecting something?”

Tsunade-sama smiled coldly.  “It’s my job to always suspect something and anything.”

“I understand, Hokage-sama,” Sakura replied stiffly.  “There is nothing else I can report.”

Tsunade-sama smiled and slapped the table.  “Good.  Now, where the hell is Kakashi with that brat?  I want to get this business over with and move on.”

Sakura sighed in relief.  Moving on.  For Tsunade-sama that would likely be returning to her sake.  For Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke-kun – it meant so much more.

 

* * *

 

The masked man was absolutely correct about the funny language jutsu-spell-thingie making Harry’s head hurt.  His eyes were burning like he’d been chopping a particularly potent onion for the Dursely’s dinner, or some similarly foul mysterious potions ingredient for class.  Rubbing at them only seemed to make it worse.  He blinked rapidly and tried to brush away any errant tears before the older man could see them.  The ache didn’t stop there but radiated back.  Something just behind his eyebrows throbbed painfully in time with the stinging in his eyes.  Harry rubbed his temples carefully.  “How long is the headache supposed to last?” he asked in English.

“Not long,” Kakashi-sensei replied, not in English.

Harry forgot about the pain and blinked up at the older man.  Weird.  He was sure whatever he had just heard was not English, but he still understood it.  He knew what it meant.  Carefully, Harry repeated the words.  He had to think about it for a moment, but the words he wanted came to mind.  It was a little like trying to remember somebody’s name.  If he thought about it hard enough, the answer just kind of popped up in his mind.

“How long?” he asked.  It was easy to mimic back a variation of what Kakashi-sensei had said.  The words came easily.  As if having heard it once, he wouldn’t forget it any time soon.

“Good job,” Kakashi-sensei replied.  He stepped over to the wall and flipped on an overhead light.

Harry flinched back from the sudden brightness and covered his eyes.  That hurt!  The burning in his eyes had just died down some, but the sudden brightness had him blinking painfully once more.

“Come along.  So many things to do, so little time!” Kakashi-sensei announced.  He was still standing by the wall.  His face (what Harry could see of it) was crinkled up seemingly into a happy smile as his one visible eyes watched Harry.  There was something slightly maniacal about that one eye that had Harry expecting him to start shouting “Constant Vigilance!”  That or offer him a lemon drop.  It was mildly disturbing.

Harry glanced away from him and looked about the room quickly.  The candles were still burning, pointlessly in the overwhelming florescent light.  The circle of symbols around him looked like spilt ink on the shiny wooden floor.  There were three toilet stalls to the left and a sink to the right.

“We’re in a bathroom?” Harry yelped.

The older man slipped out a small orange book and appeared to flip it open to a random page.  “You see?  As long as you stick to simple sentences, you shouldn’t have any trouble.  The genjutsu will translate it for you.”

“Why are we in a bathroom? Harry demanded.

“Only nearby room with hard wood floors.  We wouldn’t want to go drawing symbols on the Hokage’s nice antique carpets, now would we?”

That – made sense.  As terrifying a thought as that was.  But still!  There had to be some place better than a bathroom for performing a kind of complicated jutsu-spell-thingie.  Harry flushed in embarrassment.  “Please tell me this is at least not the girl’s bathroom,” he muttered.

Kakashi-sensei glanced at him slowly over his book.  “Oh?  Never been peeping in the girl’s bathroom before?”

“No!” Harry exclaimed as he blushed even more.  Peeping!  Who would actually go peeping!  And in a girl’s bathroom, of all places.  He’d never – well, he couldn’t exactly say that he’d never been in a girl’s bathroom before… but Moaning Myrtle’s didn’t count!  Harry glared back at the man and tried not to think about dingy bathrooms, toxic potion fumes and Moaning Myrtle spying on him in the Perfect’s bathroom.

“Oh?” Kakashi-sensei replied before chucking quietly.  “Maybe you _have_ been up to something interesting, Harry-kun.  You’ll have to tell me all about it some time.”

Harry paled.  “I’d never - ”

Kakashi-sensei waved him off before he could even defend himself.  “Right now, however, we have a meeting with the Hokage to return to.”

“But I didn’t - ”

“Come along, Harry-kun.  Tsunade-sama’s a very busy woman.  She doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” Kakashi-sensei said before slipping out the door.

Harry had no choice but to hurry along after him.  They left their mess behind, and Harry couldn’t imagine what the next person to enter into that bathroom would make of the ink and candles left burning in the center of the room.

Following along behind the tall commando dressed man in front of him, Harry was beginning to realize how tired he was.  Thankfully, the nausea from the first spell he’d been put through had faded.  The painful throbbing behind his eyes was dulling to a mild ache.  But somehow, Harry knew things were far from over.

He stared at the back of the man in front of him.  Kakashi-sensei was still reading his book _while_ he walked.  By all appearances, he was ignoring Harry completely.  The hallway was empty other than the two of them.  There were numerous doors and windows throughout.  Plenty of places to run or hide.  Every instinct he’d ever developed when it came to dealing with adults and authority was insisting that he not ignore such an excellent opportunity….

“Harry-kun!”

Harry startled slightly and jerked his eyes away from studying the hallway and back to the man in front of him.  The man who still had his back to Harry and his book out in order to read as he walked.

“What?” Harry replied, trying not to sound guilt and most likely coming across as defensive.

“Just making sure you’re still there,” Kakashi-sensei replied.  “I’d hate to have to send one of my dogs after you.  Pakkun has a bad habit of biting strangers.”

Harry flinched and shrunk back into himself.  He wasn’t terribly fond of dogs.  Hagarid’s Fang was alright, but he had detailed memories of Aunt Marge’s dogs – and their bites.  He wasn’t eager to find out just how big this Pakkun was.  He didn’t think he’d like it.

“I didn’t do anything,” Harry responded.  He’d just thought about it a little.

“Hmmm.”

Soon after that, they once more reached the double doors with the two guards standing out front.  They both nodded to Kakashi-sensei before briefly glancing at Harry.

“Um, hi,” Harry tried hesitantly.  It didn’t feel right when his mouth formed the word, but it _sounded_ right somehow in his mind.  And both guards smiled back at him quickly and returned the greeting before Kakashi-sensei ushered Harry back into the room.

Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke were all still there.  Sakura smiled tentatively at him while Naruto waved energetically.  Sasuke just stared unwaveringly at him.

“How’d it go, Harry-kun?” Naruto asked before anyone could say anything else.  His voice seemed subtly different, listening to him talk in his native tonnage and not forced to use something foreign.  It wasn’t as grating, though it was certainly still just as loud and excited as ever.  “Kakashi-sensei didn’t do anything funny, did he?” Naruto continued as he frowned.

Harry glance between the old man and the blond teenager.  He shuffled away from the adult, trying to be somewhat subtle about it.  He was beginning to suspect that there was something slightly _wrong_ about Kakashi-sensei.

Apparently, he wasn’t as subtle as he thought he was.  Naruto busted out laughing.  Sakura turned her head aside as if to hide a smile.  And even Sasuke seemed to relax and maybe even smile, just a little.

“I take it Jirarya’s jutsu worked? The blond woman demanded.  When Kakashi-sensei nodded, her eyes shifted over to Harry.  “You understand me, boy?”

Harry quickly strangled the urge to fidget as everyone in the room focused their attention on him.  “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.”  She leaned forward in her chair and folded her hands in front of her.  “What do you know so far?”

Not a bloody thing, was what Harry wanted to say, but there was something about this office and this woman that made him rethink that response and swallow that reply.  He felt like he did the first time he visited the Headmaster’s office, a little overwhelmed and suddenly very insignificant. 

Harry took a deep breath and tried to think.  What did he know?  “You knew where I lived.  You scared my Aunt – not that that’s difficult.  But you refused to leave when I told you to.”  Harry scowled.  He wasn’t having much trouble with the language, but sorting out the memories of what happened was proving a little more difficult than he would have thought.  “That man appeared.”  Harry’s eyes flickered over to Sasuke then away.  “He had red eyes.  Things after that were kind of a blur.  I tried to pull Sakura to safety at one point, but I don’t think it worked.  Then she did that – thing.  What _was_ that?”

“A complication,” Tsunade-sama replied quickly.  “Nothing for you to be concerned with.”

No one said anything to contradict her, but Harry knew there had to more to it than just that.  He had enough experience with people lying to him to recognize the signs.  Harry glanced over at Sakura-chan.  She’d been with him at the time.  But she wasn’t looking at him.  She and Sasuke were sharing some kind of significant look.  Definitely hiding something.

But then again, so was he.  No one had asked for his wand yet.  In fact, no one had even mentioned it.  Harry certainly wasn’t going to.  He hadn’t even seen a wand since coming into this village and was starting to think they didn’t necessarily know what a wand _was_.

Which just didn’t make any sense.  He’d never heard of a wizard without a wand; and these people were certainly _not_ muggles.

Harry turned back to stare at the strange woman behind the desk and scowled.  “Why exactly am I here?” he demanded.  He’d had enough of playing along.  He wanted answers.  Now.  There were enough secrets in his life.  He wasn’t going to put up with any more.  This people might have helped him once, but that didn’t mean he could trust them.  They had to give him a reason to have faith in them. 

And it was going to have to be something good. 

 

* * *

 

Sasuke’s shoulders had relaxed once Potter was back in the room.  Sasuke trusted Kakashi-sensei.  He trusted in the man’s abilities.  But having Potter back where Sasuke could personally guard him made it easier to relax.  He should have known better than to let his guard down around his Hokage.  She had a knack, eerily similar to Naruto, for catching people unaware.

“Sasuke!” the Hokage snapped.  “I think you ought to explain why Harry-kun is here.”

Sasuke clenched his fist. 

She wanted _him_ to explain why Harry was here.

She wanted him to explain _Itachi_.

He had the sudden urge to stab something.  Or even worse – run away.

Sasuke dug his fingernails into his palm hard enough to drag blood.  He was a Uchiha, damn it.  He had promised himself that he would not let this control him ever again.  Inexplicitly, however, Sasuke found himself glancing over towards Naruto.  The last person he wanted trying to explain something as – delicate – as his family was Naruto.  But Naruto didn’t know the meaning of not knowing what to say.

Naruto caught his look and smiled weakly.  There was no show of bravado or brashness, just a friendly shrug.  Like it was just that simple.

“Our fathers were related,” Sasuke stated firmly before he had a chance to think about it any further.  There would be _no_ _way_ to explain it that wasn’t going to be terrible and painful.

Potter turned to face him.  “What?” he asked weakly.

“Brothers.”  He couldn’t help the snarl that came out with that one simple word.

“Teme.”  Naruto growled only the one word but Sasuke got the point.

“They were brothers,” he managed to say in a much more normal tone.  Potter blinked before looking slowly from each person in the room to the next.  He didn’t believe him.  “James Potter - adopted by Harold and Elaine Potter – originally named Uchiha Jin,” Sasuke recited.  He’d memorized the papers found in his father’s office, what was left of them, that was.  It was likely they would never know exactly what Itachi had taken, but there was still enough proof.

But Potter still shook his head.  “There must be some kind of mistake.”

“Born March 27,” Sasuke continued, “died October 31, 1981.  Wife Lily Potter, also died October 31, 1981.”

Potter stared at him, fists clenched.  “This isn’t funny,” he growled.  “My parents’ deaths are a matter of public record.”

“My father recorded this information personally within a clan document.”  A document Sasuke hadn’t even realized was there.  Something so simple but filled with the history and loss of his family.  Every birth had been recorded.  Every marriage and every death.  Every genin, chunin and jounin promotion.  Everything perfectly maintained with the kind of meticulousness Sasuke remembered of his father.  It was a duty Sasuke himself intended to continue as soon as possible.  “I assure you, the information is reliable.”

Potter’s eyes were wide and his breathing erratic.  He was _not_ taking this well.  Sasuke breathed in slowly and tried to prepare himself for the battle ahead during this lull.  He would remain calm.  Keeping a level head was important in any situation.  And he had to remember that Potter was still just a civilian.  He probably wasn’t accustomed to receiving shocks like this.  It was bound to make things more difficult for the other teenager to understand.  Sasuke watched as Potter’s eyes darted from one person to the next and waited.

Finally, Potter looked up.  His thick glasses made it a little more difficult to read his expressions.  It was an old-school shinobi trick that Potter must have stumbled upon by coincidence – because all of the emotions Sasuke had expected to see were oddly absent.  He had expected surprise, confusion, maybe even denial, but not anger.

“I don’t have any family,” Potter finally snapped back.  His voice seemed unnaturally loud in the still silence of the Hokage’s office.

Sasuke flinched.  He didn’t know why, but he did.  He knew explaining all of this would not be simple but he hadn’t expected to have this level of hatred directed at _him_.

“Sasuke’s your family!” Naruto objected, metaphysically throwing himself into the fray.

“Shut up!” Potter _screamed_ , going from calm denial to painfully loud aggression from one second to the next.  “They’re dead!  You didn’t know them!  You had nothing to do with them!  I should have known this was nothing but a big lie.  What is it that you want?  Just shut up about my parents, stop lying and tell me what you want!”

“Oh, be quiet, noisy child!” the Hokage snapped sharply.  Sasuke kept his eyes focused on Naruto.  It was just more simplistic to avoid meeting Potter’s furious glare.  He’d been foolish to think this would be any easier.  Dealing with people was not something Sasuke had ever bothered with before.  People either did what he wanted or they weren’t going to until he forced them to.

Of course Potter was furious.  Who wouldn’t be?  There was nothing good left in his family, nothing it could offer Potter but pain and danger.  Sasuke kept his face turned away, eyes on Naruto’s frowning face.

Naruto didn’t yell.  He didn’t freak out the way he would have when they were younger.  He just stated calmly and confidently: “Sasuke-teme would _never_ lie about his family.”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Sasuke watched Potter’s attention shift from him to Naruto.  “I don’t have any family,” Potter repeated, but in a much more level tone.  He didn’t seem capable of maintaining his previous fury in the face of Naruto’s soft assertion.

Naruto scowled in reply.  “And just who were those people back there, huh?  Weren’t you living with your Aunt and Uncle?  Are they nothing?”

“Not much more than that!” Potter snapped back. There was no mistaking the anger in those green eyes before Potter looked away.  Sasuke was well versed in the many forms of anger.  This wasn’t the kind of anger that you flung outward and used to help you defeat your opponent.  This was the kind of anger you held close, always, between you and the rest of the world in order to stay alive even when you shouldn’t be.

Seeing it in his “new” cousin kind of made him want to break someone.  The implications of who that someone should be weren’t ideal.  But an Aunt by marriage was not a Uchiha…

Naruto flinched and for a moment the silence dominated once more.  Even Naruto seemed to have drifted into his own thoughtful haze at all this talk of family.  It wasn’t something the other young man could easily understand and that distance led him to poignant insights just as often as frustrated – and frustrating – incomprehensions. 

Finally, Naruto shook himself, literally, out of whatever muddled road his mind had wandered down and grinned ridiculously.  “So what’s to say that Sasuke-teme can’t be related to you?  I mean, the Uchiha’s are like the rest of the clans, they’re all anal-retentive bastards at keeping family records organized.”

“Dobe,” Sasuke hissed.

Everyone ignored him.

Potter snorted.  “A mysterious cousin from an Uncle that doesn’t exist?” he demanded of Naruto.

Naruto just grinned back and shrugged.  “Weirder things have happened.  Trust me.”  Oddly enough, people usually did trust Naruto, eventually; but Potter continued to stare at him as if he was insane – which of course he was.

“You want me to just trust you, blindly?” Potter asked.  “Why in bloody hell should I?”

Naruto shrugged again.  “Why not?”

Potter finally glanced around the room again, as if looking for support from someone else in the room. “Because you might be trying to kill me?  Cause this is probably a trick of some kind?”

The Hokage interceded with a very unlady-like snort.  “Boy, if we were trying to kill you, you’d be dead.  If we were trying to trick you, you wouldn’t know.”

“Besides, we’re trying to protect you!” Naruto added on.  He seemed to think that if he repeated it enough, Potter would believe him.

Potter was more distracted with the Hokage to properly reply at first.  It was always interesting, watching when a civilian fully realized that they stood in a room full of killers who weren’t necessarily always as mild mannered as they appeared.  Her simple statement seemed to startle him out of his ferocity.  They stared at each other for one long moment before Potter slowly turned back to Naruto.  “Protect me from what?”

“Clan politics,” Sasuke announced, before anyone else got the damn nerve to say _anything_.

It wasn’t what he was supposed to say.  He knew that. 

He just…couldn’t.  When the time came to try to _explain_ what that man had done – how could he?  How did one explain something like that?  …why did Potter even need to know?  It was Sasuke’s responsibility to avenge his family.  It was Sasuke’s responsibility to keep what happened to them from happening to Potter.  There was no vital reason for him to know the darker aspects.

Sasuke kept his eyes focused on Potter, but he was a good enough ninja to know how the others were reacting.  Sakura nearly objected, but at the last moment she managed to hide her scandalized expression.  Naruto looked confused, but that was natural for him.  The Hokage went so far as to clearly roll her eyes, but she kept her opinion from Potter’s notice.

“Huh?”

Sasuke’s fingers twitched.  Why couldn’t Potter just accept that as a very good reason and leave everything else well enough alone?  “The Uchiha clan was one of the most powerful clans in Konoha.  That makes being connected to the Uchiha clan dangerous.  That – man – was trying to kill you because you are a Uchiha.”

Nothing he said was a lie.  It wasn’t even particularly deceitful.  It just omitted a hell of a lot.  And for the time being, Sasuke was going to keep it that way.  He sent a subtle glare around the room to make sure it would.

Potter didn’t notice.  He seemed lost in his own thoughts.  “You’re serious?”

“On my family’s honor,” Sasuke promised solemnly.  “On my own life.”

Potter stared at him and Sasuke stared back.  Slowly, Potter’s eyes began to widen and they drifted in a daze till he was staring blankly at the floor.  He didn’t say anything.  Sasuke and his teammates waited patiently.  The Hokage yawned widely. 

Potter finally seemed to notice how everyone was staring at him.  He cleared his throat quietly.  “So.  This means I have another Uncle?” he asked.

Sasuke flinched.  He had been expecting something, obviously, but it still caught him off-guard.  “Had,” he corrected, carefully keeping his voice as level and calm as possible.  “My father was killed nearly ten years ago.”

This time it was Potter who flinched.   “I’m sorry.”  He said it simply, but the in the way only someone who _did_ have some understanding could.

Sasuke accepted it with a simple nod, then returned with his own discomforting question.  “How did your father die?”  It was something that had bothered him since they first found his records.  Did whatever had been wrong with his Uncle’s eyes eventually kill the man?  And more importantly, was Potter exposed to the same risks?  It was obvious something was wrong with the other teenager’s eyes.  No civilian wore glasses unless they needed them, and Potter’s glasses were thick enough to suggest he seriously did.

None of that, however, explained why his Uncle’s wife had died the same day – and that unexplained variable left a sick feeling in Sasuke’s stomach.

Potter didn’t wince at the question the way Sasuke expected him to.  He just hesitated, then answered.  “They were murdered, by a criminal, when I was a baby.”

As simple as that.

Sasuke stared at the other young man and wondered.  Sasuke knew people died all the time, often seemingly without reason.  He was a shinobi.  He understood this fact better than most people.  But the idea that a part of _his_ family could just die out like that – disappear like everything else – left Sasuke feeling worse than angry.  It left him powerless.  Always too late to change anything.  Too late to save anyone.

His fists clenched.

“It happened a long time ago,” Potter said quietly.  “There’s nothing you could have done,” he added off-handedly, like an unimportant after thought.

Being under the protection of a ninja clan would have done something.  Maybe not Sasuke himself.  He would have been an infant.  But his father could have.  If he’d… The what-if’s that laid down that road were fatal.

Sasuke’s fingers uncurled then clenched together again.  He pushed useless thoughts away and focused on the present and what needed to be done now, late but better than nothing.  Sasuke bowed, as deeply as he could and held it.  “Please forgive me,” he said.  It was far too simple but he didn’t trust himself to say more.  He didn’t know how.

Potter made a small strangled noise and even took a step closer.  “Please don’t!” he hurriedly replied.  “I said it’s _not_ your fault!”

“For my clan then,” Sasuke specified since Potter didn’t seem to understand. 

“Please don’t, it’s okay.  I mean, it’s not okay that it happened, but it’s not… Just don’t, alright?  It’s creepy.”

Clearly his cousin did not fully appreciate the importance and necessity of what Sasuke was doing.  He straightened immediately, pushing aside his acute awareness of their audience.  It was alright even if Potter didn’t understand the situation.  He didn’t need to.

Before the moment could drag out into something uncomfortable Naruto interrupted.  “So you’re okay?” he said.  “You’ll stay then?”

It seemed like Harry was _still_ going to object, but the Hokage cut him off.  “Unfortunately, you’re going to have to stay no matter what.  A very dangerous missing-nin is hunting you.  You won’t survive five minutes on your own.”

Potter’s chin lifted and he stared back at the Fifth Hokage of Konoha like a disobedient student determine to prove a teacher wrong – more bravado than brains  “I’ve managed just fine before now.”

The Hokage’s eyes narrowed as if she’d like to give him one of her “instructional” head slaps.  Sasuke had seen that look often enough directed at his blond teammate and couldn’t help the warning glare at seeing it directed towards his cousin.  One of the Hokage’s “light” hits would probably be enough to snap Potter’s neck.

“What part of very dangerous missing-nin did you not understand?” she demanded.

Potter faltered under her stare, backing down and glancing at the floor.  “I _can’t_ stay.  My friends are going to freak out when they realize I’m missing.”

The Hokage sighed and relaxed back in her chair.  “As I said, I’m afraid that is unavoidable.  Better here and alive than there at risk.  I’m sure you wouldn’t want your friends to get caught up in any of this, now would you?”

It was a sly, underhanded thing to say and Sasuke completely approved.

“Can I at least send a message?” Potter asked weakly.

Finally.  Sasuke’s whole body relaxed.  He glanced over at his teammates.  Sakura was back to smiling politely but brightly.  Naruto immediately began arguing with the Hokage that a message ought to be sent on Potter’s behalf.  Naturally, the Hokage shot him down.  While it was likely Itachi would guess that they had gone running back to the safety of the village, there was no need to advertize the fact that they had.  Too much of a safety risk.

Potter’s shoulder slumped a little more as the outcome of the discussion became clear.  He merely didn’t comprehend the situation, that was all.  He didn’t have to think in terms of espionage and information control… though perhaps Sasuke ought to explain some of it to him later so he wouldn’t think they were intentionally trying to stifle him.  Sasuke had a feeling there would be a number of things about living in a ninja village that Sasuke would have to teach to Potter.

Potter would understand eventually.  He seemed to appreciate Naruto’s efforts.  He seemed fascinated watching the ridiculous way Naruto interacted with the Hokage and her unexplainable tolerance of it.  Potter smiled, just a little, at their antics.

Sakura stepped up to stand beside him, still smiling politely.  “That wasn’t too bad,” she offered with deceptive banality.

Sasuke glance at her out of the corner of his eye.  “Hn,” he replied. 

“You had best tell him the truth – the whole truth – yourself sometime soon, Sasuke-kun,” she said sweetly.  “Before someone else does.”

It wasn’t a threat.  Sakura wouldn’t threaten him.  The gentle rebuke, however, was quiet clear.  As was the warning.  It wasn’t feasible that he’d be able to keep his cousin in ignorance forever.

But damned if he wouldn’t try to make the peace of it last for a little longer.

 

* * *

 

_“Boy, if we were trying to kill you, you’d be dead.”_

In the end, it all came down to that.

Harry followed docilely behind his three guides.  He had his hands shoved in his pockets, the fingers of one hand rubbing reassuringly across the faint ridges of his wand.  They said they weren’t lying to him, that they weren’t going to hurt him.  And they hadn’t.  The possibility that they might hung over him like something he couldn’t escape but at the same time there was nothing they had done that suggested they would.  _They_ didn’t know he was for from defenseless.  And yet they hadn’t threatened him.  They hadn’t tried to intimidate them.  They even took the time to at least offer some kind of explanation.

The teachers and the Order members back home hadn’t always been so accommodating.

But a _cousin_?

It was both too absurd to believe and too absurd to be a joke. 

Harry stared at Sasuke Uchiha’s back and watched the stiff, jerky way he moved.  This clearly wasn’t a joke to him.  The other boy had looked ready to do something drastic to prove himself.  Harry couldn’t imagine what that drastic thing might be, but he knew he didn’t want to find out.  There had been something about that bowed apology that to Harry felt like a terrible bastard mix of Dobby, Professor Lupin and Professor Snape – desperate determination, resigned regret and persistent pride.

It had both mildly traumatized him while at the same time made him a little homesick for Hogwarts. 

Harry sighed. This was just too much.  It was like his life just couldn’t stay stable long enough for him to catch his breath.

God, but he missed Sirius.

Sirius had always seemed to know what to do, even when he hadn’t really.  Sirius would have known what to do with a scowling stuck-up supposed cousin.  And in the end, for better or worse, Sirius would have had Harry laughing right along with him.

“Ramen?”

Naruto’s cheerful voice jolted Harry out of his thoughts.  Their little group slowed to a halt in the middle of the street.  Naruto had his hands behind his head, restlessness obvious in the careful way he stretch his arms back.  He sent hopeful looks to each one of them as he grinned.

Harry was starting to think ramen had a greater cultural significance here than he was familiar with.  It wouldn’t be the first time something that seemed terribly mundane to him too on a whole new meaning.  After all, Naruto seemed rather excited about it.  While ramen wasn’t his favorite food, Harry’s early morning breakfast of a couple pieces of toast had been a long time ago.

“No.”  Sasuke was glaring at Naruto as if the very suggestion offended him somehow.

“But – ” Naruto objected.  He even glanced at Harry as if looking for support.

“Naruto!” Sakura hissed.  She didn’t hesitate to yank on Naruto’s arm, pulling him away.  “I think Sasuke-kun would much rather take Harry-kun _home_.  You know, so they can talk and stuff.  In private.”

It took Naruto a moment to reply.  “Ooohh.  Yeah.  Right.  Of course.”

Harry stared at both of them.  He didn’t see what they thought was so obvious.  He couldn’t imagine what he and Sasuke could talk about.  It wasn’t like they were bound to have anything in common.

Sasuke sighed.  “Tomorrow,” he promised before stiffly turning away.  He didn’t wait for a response and instead continued down the street.

Harry hesitated.  Apparently their little group was splitting up.  Sakura and Naruto both smiled in an obvious attempt to be encouraging.  Harry sighed and attempted to smile back.  He had a feeling it came off flat.  With a little wave, Harry turned away and followed after his grumpy cousin.

Sasuke kept about three steps ahead of Harry the entire way.  As awkward as the silence was, it had its advantages.  Harry could gawk all he wanted without the other boy noticing.  None of the other buildings were quiet as impressive as the Hokage tower but there were still plenty of interesting things to look at.  They passed several people dressed in army gear like Kakashi-sensei had been – and each one seemed to be more interesting than the last.  The scars alone!  Suddenly for once in a very long time, Harry was not self-conscious at all of his own scar.  Part of him was tempted to ruffle up his bangs just because it was likely no one would notice or care but in the end he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. 

And then there was the giant carving.  Harry wasn’t sure what exactly it was, but it sure was impressive.  Sasuke had been in the middle of leading Harry through an intersection when it came into view and Harry stopped in the middle of the road to state in wonder and confusion.  It looked like Mount Rushmore and he wondered if the five faces looming overhead were presidents too.  It took him a moment to recognize the woman on the end.

“Potter!” Sasuke was frowning _again_ as he came hurrying back to where Harry was.  “Don’t wander off!” the other boy snapped, as if Harry was an errant five-year old.

For a moment, it would have been easy to get angry and snap back at the other young man.  But the impulse passed and it was suddenly just too much effort.  Harry sighed.  “I didn’t wander off” he replied.  “I was just looking,” he explained as he pointed up at the five frowning faces above.

It was enough to make Sasuke hesitate and glance up.  But then he frowned again.  “It’s just the Hokage monument.”

Harry sighed and shoved his hands back in his pockets.  “Never mind,” he muttered.

Sasuke stared at him for a moment longer before pivoting sharply on one foot and lead the way again.

Harry was going to be relieved when all this walking was done.  He didn’t think he was a lazy person by any means, but he could really use a moment to just sit and do nothing for a moment.  It would do wonders for his poor brain.

The people moving around him suddenly thinned out dramatically.  There was a thin wall separating the area ahead and Sasuke led him unerringly towards the open arch leading through it.  There was a faded red and white symbol painted at the very top of the arch and Harry recognized it immediately.  He’d been staring at the much smaller version that was stitched onto the back of Sasuke’s shirt.  A crest of some kind?  Living in the wizarding world had made Harry more familiar with symbolism and family crests.  Harry started to ask just what the symbol was supposed to be but then a sobering thought hit him.  What if it _was_ a family crest?  If Sasuke was his cousin and the funny red and white symbol was the crest of Sasuke’s family, then what did that mean for Harry?  Nobody had ever told him much about the Potters as a family line.  He knew they were a wizarding family and an old one at that but nobody had ever _told_ him anything about them.  Did they have a family crest?  Was it still _his_ then?

Harry stumbled a little over his own two feet.  Sweet Merlin, but what had just happened?  If everything they said was true…then just who was he anymore?

Sasuke glanced over his shoulder.  His eyes narrowed as if he knew exactly what Harry was thinking.  He didn’t say anything, however.  He merely kept walking, leading Harry down through the empty streets.

After the second street filled with empty weather beaten old houses, Harry was quite positive that this had to be the most unnerving place he’d ever been in his whole life.  Which was saying something.

Where the bloody hell was everyone?  The rest of the village had felt like it was bursting at the brim with loud colorful people.  Even as they had passed stiffly postured soldiers on the earlier roads, there had been yelling and laughing children pushed their way by them.  But here it was just – dead. 

Sasuke’s pace had picked up and Harry wondered if he felt as uncomfortable as he did walking through the empty streets.  The possibility was enough to keep Harry quiet.

Eventually Sasuke made a sharp left, then came to a sudden stop.  Apparently they were there.  Harry glanced up to find they were standing on the edge of destruction.  Deep gorges ran from the dirt road, across the small strip of grass and shattered large portions of the front porch.  There were burn marks everywhere.  There were a scattering of oddly shaped knifes spread out across the yard.  A couple of nearby shrubs had been uprooted.  The front door of the house had been cracked nearly in to two and hung limply eschewed.

“Damn,” Sasuke muttered suddenly, then sighed.

Harry’s eyes widened even more as they moved from the damage to Sasuke.  That was it?  This place was trashed and all Sasuke said was ‘damn’?  “Is this your house?” Harry asked hesitantly.

Sasuke sighed and kicked a nearby clump of dirt out of his way.  “Yes, my family’s home.”

Harry flinched as if he’d been slapped.  His chest felt like it had collapsed and he had to take a slow deep breath to force it to expand again.  A family’s home…but Sasuke’s reaction did _not_ fit at all.  “Are you okay?”

Sasuke looked up and met his eyes.  The dark aloof young man frowned in confusion.  It was bizarre how clearly different this frown was from his other frowns – how much more expressive.  Then he blinked and the entire expression was gone.  He snorted and stepped towards the house and over a hole in the yard.  “It happened days ago, before we left to retrieve you.  I just hadn’t taken it into consideration before now.”

He’d forgotten.  Forgotten that someone had attacked his house and did a good job of nearly destroying it.  Harry took another deep breath and tried to focus on only the important parts and freak out about the rest of it latter.  “Are you alright?”

Sasuke froze with one foot up on the porch.  He turned very slowly and stared at Harry with both eyebrows raised.

It made Harry feel like an idiot and he glared back.  “I was just asking.  It looks like a tornado swept through here.”

Sasuke blinked once, continuing to seem surprised and mildly amused by Harry, before inexplicably scowling darkly.  “No, it wasn’t a tornado,” he growled before snapping, “I’m fine, Potter.”

Harry felt like hitting his head against something.  Would it kill the other teen to be civil?  Harry ignored the way the knot of tension lodged deep in his chest lessened and met Sasuke’s aggressive stare with his own.  It was amazing how much it felt like confronting Mafloy.  “Don’t call me Potter like that.”

Sasuke’s foot slipped out from underneath him and he landed heavily back in the grass. “What?” he asked quietly, voice no longer caustic and eyes almost humorously wide.

Harry rolled his eyes and carefully started to cross the ruin of a front yard.  “You sound like a prat when you say it that way.”

Sasuke didn’t move even when Harry came up beside him.  “What should I call you then?” he asked slowly.

Harry shrugged, looking away and suddenly feeling uncomfortable with the whole conversation for some reason.  “Just Harry is fine.”

There was a long moment, and then Sasuke nodded sharply.  “That would be – appropriate – I suppose.  Then you should call me Sasuke.”

Harry had planned on doing so anyway, but apparently he had been given permission now.  He nodded back, solemnly and waited for Sasuke to lead the way into the house.  The inside wasn’t much better.  There were deep gouges in the walls and floor and long streaking burn marks that looked like they came from something that burned very hot and very fast.

Sasuke seemed completely unconcerned as he led Harry down the hall.  The entire house was set up like something out of an Asian movie.  It was a peculiar feeling to be walking by paper screen doors and hanging scrolls. It seemed like just once he was starting to get used to medieval style stone castles, he found himself lost in a kung fu movie.  If the ninjas popped up out of nowhere, Harry was going to give up trying to understand or predict the world.  Except Sasuke supposedly _was_ a ninja, so maybe it was only fitting…

Sasuke led him into a surprisingly undamaged room.  Sasuke opened a closet while Harry took a quick look around.  There weren’t any of the typical pictures and _things_ that Harry had come to associate with other people’s homes.  But there were still subtler signs that someone used this room regularly.  The desk chair was slightly eschewed, the blanket wrinkled, a well-worn camping bag slumped against the dresser….

Sasuke pulled a bundle of thick fluffy padding out of the closet and stood there holding it as if it wasn’t something terribly ungainly looking.  “You’ll sleep in here,” he announced.

“Whose room is this?” Harry asked in reply.  He didn’t like the idea of turning someone else out of their room.

Sasuke immediately scowled in response to being questioned.  “None of the rest of the bedrooms are habitable.  You’ll have to stay here.”

Harry glared back reflexively.  He wasn’t trying to be difficult.  It was just a simple question…Except if the other rooms really were uninhabitable, then “Where are you sleeping?” he asked out of curiosity.

Sasuke shifted his burden higher and walked towards the door.  “Across the hall, in the Receiving Room.  You’ll be safe here.”

Harry rolled his eyes.  It was almost like being back in Grimmauld Place and being told to stay out of the way so that he’d be safe.  As if that would keep him safe.  “That’s stupid.  This is your room,” he said, since it clearly had to be.  “You ought to stay here.  I can sleep across the hall.”

“No,” Sasuke replied, right away shooting down the very suggestion.

Harry wasn’t going to be brushed off that easily.  “Why not?”

Sasuke stopped just before the door, but he didn’t turn around.  “Because I’m not going to have you – ” he broke off mid-sentence and made a frustrated sound.  “Just because, Potter.” 

Stupid stubborn prat.  “My name’s Harry, Uchiha,” he replied coldly.  Fine.  If he didn’t want to compromise for his own sake then Harry wasn’t going to try either.  But he wasn’t going to let Sasuke go back to that stiff form of address. 

Sasuke didn’t turn around.  He didn’t say anything.  He just nodded curtly, stepped outside the door and snapped it shut sharply behind himself. 

Harry was left standing in an unfamiliar room in the fading light with nothing else to do but think – a lot.


	9. Making Connections - Interlude 3

* * *

Tonks sectioned off large portions of what remained of the Dursely’s yard.  In all her experience, both in training and in the field, she had never seen such _odd_ aftermath.

It was contradictory.  Such level of destruction, but no obvious signs of magic.  Things were crushed and torn and burnt beyond recognition, but nothing had been conjured, nothing had been transformed, nothing had fundamentally _changed_ in the way magic always affected the natural world.  There was no concrete proof that magic had even been involved here at all, even if it was the only logical explanation.

There was no clue as to who was responsible for this.

Or where they were.

Or where Harry was.

She put up containment spells and notice-me-not spells.  The Order member assigned to watch the house was no where to be found, and Tonks was afraid to assume the worst.  Hopefully he had just left to get reinforcements.  If not, it was likely he was laying dead somewhere, waiting for them to find his body… Tonks hurried to block out the muggle neighbors and hunted down the aunt, uncle and wale of a cousin and contained them as well.  Clean up.  All she could do now was clean up.  She did everything she could, by the book and with the kind of deliberate perfection she was only capable of achieving under the most critical of field operations.

And when it still wasn’t enough, she sat down on the curb of a muggle street next to a battered old man and held his hand. 

There was nothing left to do but wait for the rest of the Order to arrive.

“There’s no dark mark,” she told him softly.

Remus just shook his head weakly.

Tonks bit her lip and tried again.  “I know it looks terrible, but I can’t find any evidence that anyone was actually hurt.”

Remus shook his head again.  “I saw that man’s eyes.  He is a killer.  _Something_ has happened.”

It wasn’t in Tonks’s nature to give up hope that easily, but there _was_ something about this entire situation that just didn’t feel right.  It was hard to hold on to possibilities with so many unknowns.  She tried to work that thought through all the way.  If her assumptions couldn’t be relied on, then what?  Such destruction, but no trace of dark magic or the dark mark… “You don’t think it was Death Eaters.”

Remus finally looked up at her, his golden brown eyes still slightly unfocused.  “If it was anyone other than Harry...”

Tonks shuddered.  “If it wasn’t a Death Eater or someone else associated with You-Know-Who, then that would mean that there’s someone else out there after poor Harry.  Who would want to k – harm a fifteen year old boy?”

“I don’t know,” Remus replied miserably.  “The wards are supposed to protect Harry.  That’s why Dumbledore insisted on him remaining in this miserable place.  No one who meant him harm should have been able to find this place, much less cast any offensive spells.”

Tonks shook her head.  “I couldn’t find any spell residue.  It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“It seems like nothing ever does anymore.”

Tonks felt her hair droop and fall into a heavy dark gray curtain around her face.  She stared at Remus’s bent head, at the pre-mature dusting of silver in it that she had always thought was dashing in its own way.  She stared at the graceful thin fingers her own were wrapped around, at the way scars criss-crossed over the back of them like fine spider webs.  She stared at his sorrow and hated herself.

Harry had always been rather stand-offish boy, as long as she had known him, Oh, he was friendly enough – quick to smile and laugh and play along with any good joke.  But he never talked about himself.  Never sought others out.  Never asked for help or advice or a friendly shoulder.  Tonks had always liked him, but only in the way one could like a stranger or a new acquaintance – she liked the possibility in him.

She never much thought about what Harry was to Remus.  She’d always known he liked Harry.  He spoke highly of him whenever given the chance.  But he spoke like a proud teacher, not as a friend, certainly not as a father.

But she’d seen bereaved parents whose grief had been no less real and consuming.  It left her at a loss to understand just how much Remus had invested in Harry.  Surely a near stranger who had little more than mutual grief in common with Remus couldn’t mean so much to a man as self-reliant and self-contained as Remus was.

But it did.  This wasn’t just the failure of an Order member to fulfill his appointed task.  This was the breaking of a man.  And it made Tonks hate herself in a way she never had before for not being able to _fix_ this.

“We’ll find him,” she whispered hoarsely, tightening her own pale small clumsy hand around his.  “Somehow.  Dumbledore will have a plan.  Or – or you and I’ll figure it out.  Somehow.  Please, Remus, I – I promise.  Don’t give up.”

Remus rubbed the rough pad of his thumb along the underside of her wrist and looked up slowly.  He didn’t smile exactly, but something about his face softened.  “I’m not giving up, Tonks.  I won’t ever give up on Harry as long as there’s a chance.  I couldn’t do that to his father.  I can’t do that to him.”  He glanced back down at their hands.  He reached over and patted her hand with his other hand before pulling both away.  “Thank you, Tonks, for your friendship.  But I suspect an Auror like yourself will be needed elsewhere.”

Tonks scowled and brushed her hair back with an angry jerking motion of her hand.  “Where I’m needed is with you, looking for Harry.  I’m not giving up on him either.”

“It’s not – ”

“He was my cousin’s godson,” she argued.  “He was lost on my watch.  He’s a student at Hogwarts and by extension a minor under the protection of the Ministry’s Auror Department.  He’s a good kid.  I’m not giving up either.”  She’d worked herself up into a right lather and suspected it was clearly visible.  Good.  She wanted him to know she was serious, that she wasn’t just a bumbling idiot.  She could help him.  She could be just as tough as he was.  He needed her.

Remus just sighed.  Then he smiled ever so slightly.  “Alright.  We can do it together.”

Tonks nodded sharply.  Something warm and determined bubbled up within her and seemed to fill every pore and space.  They could do this.  They could do anything.  They sat for one long fragile moment before she asked: “So now what?”

“I don’t know, Remus replied bluntly.  But then he pushed himself slowly up to his feet.  “Let’s try talking to Lily’s sister first.”

Tonks scowled again.  “You won’t get anything useful out of her.  I tried.”

Remus smiled slyly.  “You have to knowhow to speak Dursley-ese.  Petunia often knows more than she realizes.  Come on.  You can play bad Auror and I’ll play good Auror.  Maybe if we’re lucky, we can find out something useful before anyone else can get here.”

Tonks smiled and graciously let him help her up to her feet.  Now here was the Remus she knew.


	10. Making Connections - Day 2

* * *

Harry’s eyes snapped opened and his fingers tightened around his wand.  He’d _felt_ something.  Magic, but not magic.  Enough to make the hair on the back of his neck stand up.  Harry scrambled to get out of the unfamiliar bed and had to struggle to untangle his legs from the blankets.  He darted his eyes around Sasuke’s room, playing the familiar game of spot-what-changed that every muggle-raised wizard discovered early on at Hogwarts.  Nothing looked out of place.  He had poked around last night as much as he thought was remotely, arguably, polite.  There wasn’t much to look at.  Just an _unhealthy_ amount of sharp objects stored in the most unconventional of places and dozens upon dozens of scrolls covered in illegible scrawling symbols that Kakashi-sensei had warned him the translation spell-jutsu-thingie wouldn’t translate for him.  He’d been careful to try to put everything back in place exactly as it was.  In the early morning light it looked almost the same as in the fading light of the night before.

He smelled fried dough the same moment his stomach lurched painfully and a sharp knock rattled the paper door.

“Harry-kun?” a cheerful voice called out.

Definitely not Sasuke.

“I have food, Harry-kun!” the voice taunted playfully and Harry finally recognized who it was.

“Kakashi-sensei?” Harry stepped away from the wall and to the door.  Before he got half-way, he screen slid open an inch before being shoved back all the way after a brief hesitation.  Kakashi-sensei stood on the other side, a take-out bad in one hand.  He was wearing the exact same outfit as the day before, complete with half mask, covered eye and unruly white hair.

“Sasuke-kun forgot to feed you last night, didn’t he?” Kakashi-sensei asked brightly.

Harry scowled.  Why did he feel like Kakashi-sensei was treating him like a neglected pet pooch?  But Harry wasn’t going to turn away free food just because the man giving it to him was weird.  Besides, he was beginning to suspect that Kakashi-sensei was doing it on purpose.  There was something sarcastic hidden underneath everything the older man said.  Harry’s stomach clenched again painfully.  His small breakfast yesterday had been a long time ago.  He wasn’t awake enough to be trying to figure out these people.  He stared pointedly at the bag of fresh food and ignored everything else.  Kakashi-sensei got the point and handed over Harry’s breakfast.  There were fried balls of dough inside the bag and they smelled heavenly.  Harry didn’t hesitate to shove one in his mouth.  Kakashi-sensei slipped by him into Sasuke’s room and made a show of looking around as if he’d never been there before.  Harry watched him subtly as he enjoyed his food.

“You and Sasuke-kun have a nice talk last night?” Kakashi asked as he peeked out the window at the porch and large yard beyond.

Harry snorted before he could think better of it, then blushed.  “Ah, I mean, no, not really,” he replied a little more civilly.  “He went to bed early.”

“Did he now?” Kakashi-sensei sounded rather amused by that, but it was hard to really know.

Harry just shrugged.  He could understand the awkwardness Sasuke probably felt.  After all, Harry was essentially invading his life – even if it wasn’t entirely voluntary.  “It’s alright,” he commented softly.

“Hmm,” Kakashi-sensei turned back around, shoulders slouched, hands in his pockets.  “Why are you so worried about getting back?”

Harry froze with a doughnut-thingie in his mouth, before chewing, swallowing and quickly frowning at the man.  “Why _wouldn’t_ I?”

“You don’t seem particularly close to your Aunt and Uncle.”

“So?” Harry replied defensively.

Kakashi-sensei shrugged slowly, like a great big cat rolling its shoulders.  “I was only wondering who it is you feel an obligation to.”

Harry stopped eating.  “I have school in a couple of months.”

“You didn’t strike me as the academic type, Harry-kun.”

“I have good friends there.”

Kakashi-sensei stared at him silently for a moment before seemingly smiling.  “I’m glad to hear that, Harry-kun,” he said quietly before stepping forward until he loomed over Harry.  Slowly, Kakashi-sensei reached into Harry’s bag of sugared greasy doughnuts and pulled one out to eat.  “I do hope you aren’t too hasty to leave us, however.  I’d hate to have to go fetch you again.  I don’t think your caretakers would like that very much.”

Harry looked away and nodded automatically.

“We are interested in your welfare,” Kakashi-sensei commented plainly.  Then he moved away and shifted gears completely.  “Sasuke-kun’s out back doing his morning training.  Let him know that I don’t approve of his lack of manners.  Team 7 has light training today.  You ought to come and watch.”  And then he disappeared out the door like he had never been there in the first place.

Harry stared out after him for a moment before glancing down at the still warm bag of food in his hands.  Why did that simple conversation make him feel like he’d just faced an interrogation squad?  He suddenly wasn’t so hungry. 

 

* * *

 

Sasuke was up before the sun, as usual.  He didn’t dwell on his difficulty sleeping the night before.  It was only logical that he would be so on edge.  Theoretically, their mission had not ended.  True, Harry was in Konoha, but he was far from being safe.  The first order of business was checking on his cousin.  He disarmed the harmless, but noisy, traps he had set up outside of his cousin’s room and silently slid open the door wide enough for him to survey the room.  Satisfied, Sasuke slipped quietly out of the house.

He’d spent the early part of the night running over his various options for Harry’s continued safety.  Obviously, the preferred method was simply to take care of the matter personally.  There were several problems with that, however.  Guarding his cousin would sharply conflict with hunting down his brother.  Besides, he was also now finally back on active duty and he and the rest of Team 7 had been pulling regular missions ever since.

Sasuke stepped out onto the back porch and breathed in the morning air deeply.  He stretched out his senses, but found nothing of concern.  He should have plenty of time for his morning exercises and stretches.  He stepped off the smooth wooden planks onto the wet soft grass.  He preferred to do his morning exercises bare foot.  He liked to feel the ground and soil and life beneath his feet as he moved and as it moved with him.

Sasuke need to come up with a back-up plan for the future.  There was no other ninja family that he could call in a favor from.  Sasuke had managed to sufficiently distance himself from all of the other clans.  That didn’t leave Sasuke completely without options.  What couldn’t be had by loyalty could often be had by money.  Sasuke knew approximately how much it would take to hire appropriate protection for whenever Sasuke would be unable to see to his duty himself.  It couldn’t possibly cost more than Sasuke could make.

Sasuke moved until he was close to the back fence and positioned himself in a small clearing between the trees along the east fence and the gentle slope leading down towards the compound’s lake.  Normally, he’d have left for one of the bigger shared training fields.  There was more open space there, the land well worn down from countless shinobi training.  There was a generous amount of open land near the house, but it wasn’t the same.  The shade, the quiet, the soft rolling hill and the gently waving ankle deep grass that covered it was all different.  Not that it truly made a difference in the end.  He’d used the same morning exercises most of his life and could perform them anywhere. 

            Money had never been a concern for Sasuke before now, but he’d have to be careful with funds from now on.  Some missions weren’t paid, and many of the ones Team 7 drew were not paid enough.  He needed to start thinking long term.  His idea of what long term meant had to change.  It was no longer one campaign at a time.  It was no longer just his eventual revenge.  He couldn’t afford to ignore everything else any more.

Sasuke moved through one stance after another.  His body was still slightly stiff from his battle the day before.  He patiently worked each twinge of soreness out until he was once more satisfied with his body’s flexibility.

He wasn’t finished yet when he felt the signature energy of Kakashi-sensei flickering _away_ from the house.

“Damn him,” Sasuke grumbled before stopping suddenly and marching up to the house.  “Meddling bastard.”  Kakashi-sensei just couldn’t leave well enough alone.  He wouldn’t have left unless he’d accomplished whatever it was he came for and Sasuke had the suspicion it was something ‘for Sasuke’s own good.”  He didn’t _need_ help, damn it.  It was the first day.  Nothing had gone wrong.  Nothing had happened.  Why did Kakashi-sensei insist on coming along behind him like he was some errant child that needed checking up on?

Sasuke sighed and took long enough to wipe off his feet before entering the house.  He had a feeling this kind of meddling was going to happen far more often than he would like.  There was no sense storming in there now.  He would make his displeasure clearly known later.

The house was still silent.  Sasuke shuffled his feet intentionally as he approached his room.  Fixing the house was one of the many necessities now on his list of things to take care of.  He (with the limited help of Naruto) had cleaned out the worst of the disrepair of the house when Sasuke had originally moved back in, but they hadn’t wasted time on the finer details.  He’d have to go back and fix that.

It felt weird to knock at his own door.

There was sudden movement from the other side.  The sound of something being dropped.  A muttered “bloody hell” came through the door, then a shuffling, before the door was clumsily pushed back.  Harry was a little wide-eyed but otherwise perfectly fine.  There were some crumbs still stubbornly clinging to the side of his mouth.  The room smelt strongly of fried food and Sasuke raised one eyebrow slowly.

Harry blushed.  “You’re up,” he commented inanely before flinching at his own words. 

Sasuke was used to people shying away from him, but how pathetic was it that his own cousin couldn’t say two words to him without doing the same.  “Yes,” Sasuke replied just as inanely.

“Oh.”  Harry stepped back from the door, putting a little space between them.  He reached up and tried to flatten down his hair.  “Um, that man – ah, your teacher…he was here.  Just a moment ago.  Like literally, he was just here.”

“Yes,” Sasuke repeated.  It seemed like that was all needed to be said, but Harry was still staring at him.  “I know,” he added simple and shrugged one shoulder.

“Oh,” Harry replied.

There was a bag of take-out sitting incongruitously in the middle of his bedroom floor.  “He brought you food?” Sasuke frowned.  What the hell?  In all the years Sasuke had known the older ninja, he’d never heard of him buying someone else a meal, much less delivering food.  What did he think, that Sasuke couldn’t manage such a simple thing?

“Sorry,” Harry quickly replied.  He scooped up the rumbled looking bag immediately.  He even brushed the flat of his hand across the floor as if to wipe up an invisible mess.  “I didn’t know if I was allowed to eat in here or not.”

Sasuke opened his mouth to dismiss Harry’s concerns, then realized the very simple mistake he’d already made.  In all of his thinking and planning last night, he actually hadn’t managed to take care of the most elementary of needs.  “When was the last time you ate?”

Harry juggled the paper bag awkwardly.  He seemed to want to get rid of it, but didn’t know how.  He eventually settled for holding half hidden at his side.  “I ate about half of them while I was talking to Kakashi-sensei, so I’m good.  Oh!  Did you want some?” he asked suddenly.  He jerked the bag back out and held it up.  “I don’t know what they’re called, but they’re pretty tasty.”

Sasuke glared at the bag and cursed himself.  The evasive answer was more than answer enough.  Sasuke had been so tense the night before it hadn’t even occurred to him that it was time to eat something.  He was used to missing the occasional meal during busy times.  There was nothing Sasuke could say in response to such a failure.

After a long silence, Harry let the bag fall back down to his side.  Harry sighed.  “I’m sorry. I know this has to be a bother for you.”

Sasuke scowled even more and gripped his fists tight.  The relative calm of this morning had completely disappeared.  Any feeling that he had control of the situation was long gone.  “It’s not your – damn it.  There’s food in the kitchen.  Stop apologizing.  If you need something, say so.”  This was not the way he wanted things to be.

And now Harry was openly glaring at him.  Great.

“I’m fine,” Harry replied finally in a curt voice.

Sasuke sighed quietly.  He was smart enough to recognize when an approach was not working, but this was one of the few times in his life that he didn’t know how to correct his tactic.  So he followed traditional strategic logic.  With a sharp nod, he pivoted on one heel and stiffly strode back to the door.

“Wait!”

Sasuke froze, unsure of what to expect.  It was too much to expect Harry to know how to fix this.  What if he hated Sasuke?  Sasuke wouldn’t blame him, but he didn’t know how he’d manage protecting Harry if he hated him.  It was going to make shadowing him more difficult.

Harry was still glaring at him, arms crossed over his chest.  The display had little over the temper tantrums the S-class ninja Sasuke had known over the course of his life, nor the chilling demeanor both Sasuke’s father and brother had been capable of.  But there was something annoyingly familiar about it.  With a little practice, it really would be something.  It was certainly stubborn enough.

“Yes?” Sasuke asked slowly, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

“Kakashi-sensei said your team has light training, and that I’m to come with you,” Harry announced.  “Oh, and he said to tell you he doesn’t approve of your bad manners.  He knows you pretty well, doesn’t he?”

Sasuke glared back but didn’t rise to the bait by sheer will power.  He was not getting into a sneering match with his civilian cousin.  “He’s my sensei,” Sasuke replied.  Never mind the brief sabbatical during which his “sensei” had most definitely not been Kakashi-sensei.  “And what do you mean you’re to come with us?  You are not a shinobi.”

“I’m not helpless you know,” Harry snapped back.

“I never said that,” Sasuke agreed compliantly.  “You just might as well be compared to one of us.”

Harry growled and stepped forward.  “You’re a real arse, you know that?”

Yes, Sasuke was well aware.  He’d done a number of bastardly things.  He wasn’t going to deny it.  But there wasn’t really any reason to confirm it either.  He was fairly certain that type of question was typically rhetorical.  So he waited.

“Prat,” Harry spat before sighing and rubbing vigorously at his face.  It uncovered a thin jagged line running down his forehead.

Sasuke’s eyes zeroed in on it automatically with the ease of someone trained to notice such minute details.  “What is that?” he demanded, jumping shamelessly on the diversion.

“Eh?” Harry asked.  Then he flushed an angry red and slapped his hand over the mark.  He hastily tried to smooth his ruffled hair down over it.  “Nothing,” he denied.

It was almost more pathetic than watching Naruto trying to hide something.  “Is it old?” Sasuke demanded.  He needed to know.  Any head wound was a serious wound and could have detrimental effects even months later.  Sasuke didn’t need to have Sakura’s extensive medical knowledge to know that.

Harry looked away.  All his anger seemed to have defused in the wake of what might have been embarrassment.  It was hard to tell exactly what Harry’s discomfort was coming from.  “It’s old,” Harry confirmed quietly.  “From when I was a baby.”

Sasuke frowned.  A scar that old must have been very significant.  Traumatic, even.  There was only one event in Harry’s life that Sasuke knew of that fit that description.  No wonder Harry disliked questions about it.  Sasuke had been known to respond much more violently to lesser provocation. “Ah,” Sasuke finally replied.  He firmly resisted the urge to cover his own already covered mark.

Neither spoke for a long moment after that

“Are we going now or later?” Harry finally asked.

Sasuke sighed.  Damn Kakashi.  Apparently, Harry was coming with him to team training.  If Naruto screwed up even one jutsu that placed his cousin at risk, Sasuke would kill both him and their stupid meddling sensei.

 

* * *

 

Naruto wasn’t prone to worrying about what might happen.  His day to day life gave him enough to focus on.  Surviving the present and the immediate future were his main concern.  So when Team 7 parted the night before, Naruto did not head back to his small apartment worried about Harry-kun, finances and all the bad things that _could_ happen.  He went home with a grin on his face and arrived early the next morning still grinning.

Sasuke-teme had a _family_ now.  It might not be the one he’d lost, and it would certainly never fully fill that hole and it wouldn’t give Sasuke-teme his vengeance, but it was still freaking cool.

Things could not get any better than this.

…Alright, Itachi wasn’t dead yet, and not having to worry about Akatsuki would be pretty nice, but Naruto was smart enough to enjoy what he could get.  And somehow, Sasuke having a cousin – no longer being completely without that idea of family that he obviously could so clearly remember – it was almost as good as Naruto having a new cousin of his very own.

And thank god Harry-kun was not another Sasuke!  Harry had a sense of humor!  He smiled!  He wasn’t a stuck up bastard!  He hadn’t really been happy to be there, but Naruto wasn’t worried about that.  He was confident that between the three of them, Team 7 could convince him that Konoha was the coolest place ever.  Way better than that boring place he was from.

It was with that mission in mind that Naruto launched himself over the roof tops of Konoha, speeding toward Team 7’s traditional meeting place.  Today was going to be a good day.  He could feel it in his bones.

Sakura was already waiting at the bridge. She was reading something, as usual.  He stopped beside her and tilted his head nearly upside down to read the markings on the outside.  It said something about plant stems.  Sakura-chan read the weirdest things sometimes.  Maybe she was planting a garden.  When she reached a stopping place, she finally looked up and smiled sweetly.  Naruto beamed back. 

All of Team 7 had been placed on reserve leave for the next few weeks.  While normally Naruto would have preferred keeping busy with missions and protested such restraints, it was hard to resent the forced vacation on such a sunny day.  This was when Konoha was truly at its best.  The sun was out and warm on his skin.  The humidity was down and there was even a wind brushing against them.  Perfect sparring weather.

And for perhaps the first time in his life, Sasuke was nearly late for team training.  His cousin trailed along beside him.  Coming over the hill, in the early morning light, standing together – they made for quite the odd pair. 

Sasuke’s expression was grim, as usual, but not troublesome.  With his jaw relaxed, but his forehead wrinkled, the expression was Sasuke-teme’s thoughtful face.  Lightyears away from his angry or even annoyed faces.  It was the kind he got when he was trying to work out a particularly complex trap and not the kind he got when he was envisaging man-slaughter.  Dressed in the dark blue and black of his modified uniform, Sasuke-teme was the picture of a grim shinobi.  The only color to him was the small Uchiha patch he’d attached on one shoulder.  It matched the much larger fan on the back of his shirt, hidden by his vest.  The only thing missing was the katana he took with him on missions.  Sasuke-teme was a conceited, bitchy, pain in the ass, but even Naruto could secretly admit he made being a ninja look damn good.

Not that he’d ever say as much out loud.  And definitely no where anyone could hear him.  And not even in the same country as Sakura-chan or Ino, just to be safe.

But if Sasuke was the picture of a silently deadly ninja, then Harry-kun, by contrast, reminded Naruto of his own academy days. 

It was the shirt.  It was hard to take someone seriously when they were wearing a shirt five sizes too big.  With holes in it.  The thing flapped about the other young man’s frame like a flag caught in the wind.  It was faded red, and showed up next to Sasuke-teme like a bright swatch of color in the dark of the forest.

Harry-kun’s hair was the same dark color as Sasuke’s, and it seemed to ignore the laws of gravity the same way Sasuke-teme’s did.  Except, where Sasuke’s rarely moved at all, Harry-kun’s flew about wildly.  It went left, it went right, it flew straight up before flopping back down to cover Harry’s eyes.  Naruto’s grin stretch even further but he resisted the urge to chuckle.  It was like Harry’s hair had a life of its own.

“It’s amazing how young he looks,” Sakura-chan commented quietly.

Naruto glanced down at her. “Huh?”

Sakura’s eyes were trained on the two figures slowly approaching them along the bank of the river.  “Harry-kun,” she clarified.

Naruto looked back up.  Now that the pair was a little closer, he could see the way Harry’s eyes darted about trying to take everything in; and the much more subtle way Sasuke’s attention was focused on the presence to his right.  Naruto suspected, however, that Sakura-chan was seeing something that he wasn’t.  She was good at that.  “I thought he was our age,” Naruto replied. 

Sakura-chan shook her head softly before carefully rolling up her scroll and tucking it safely away.  “It’s not the same,” she explained.  She glanced up at him, eyes calculating in the way she’d only developed after years of working as a medic-nin under Tsunade-ba-chan.  “He’s a civilian, Naruto.  You need to remember that.  He isn’t going to be like the other guys from the academy.”

Naruto frowned.  He didn’t know if he liked the sound of that.  “He seems like an okay guy to me.”

Sakura-chan shook her head again.  “That’s not what I meant.  Just – be a little careful around him, alright?  We’re all going to have to think of him more like a client, and less like one of us.”

Naruto scowled even further.  “Well, that’s no fun.”  He folded his arms over his chest and shifted his glare away from Sakura-chan.  She was only saying what she thought was best.  But it just sounded wrong to him.  Clients….were annoying, most of the time.  Harry-kun was like a slightly smaller, much more ruffled version of Sasuke-teme.  He wasn’t a client.  But he guessed Sakura-chan was right, he wasn’t exactly a shinobi either. 

“I’ll be careful,” he promised.  But he wasn’t going to give up on Harry either.  So what if he didn’t know anything about being a ninja now.  That didn’t mean he couldn’t learn.  Naruto had learned all kinds of things long after he’d left the academy.  And who better to teach Harry than Team 7?  It’d be awesome.  And maybe Sasuke would relax a little once he realized his cousin wasn’t disappearing any time soon.

 

* * *

 

It was still early morning and Harry already had a headache.  He was beginning to believe that his cousin specialized in giving them to other people.  It was hard to imagine someone else who was naturally so grating.  Sasuke didn’t seem to even know how not to be.  Every time the other boy started to do or say something vaguely nice, he seemed unable to resist following it up with something sarcastic and insulting.  He didn’t know how the cheerful Naruto or the friendly Sakura-chan put up with him.  They weren’t family.  They didn’t have to.  But maybe there was something about Sasuke that was worth putting up with the rest of him.

Maybe he would have to ask them.  He and Sasuke were on their way to meet with them, thank god.  If Harry had been stuck in a house all day with just Sasuke then there definitely would have been a _lot_ of yelling.

The village looked much the same that morning as it had the day before, if maybe a little quieter. They only passed a few subdued groups of younger teens and the occasional shop keeper.  Harry enjoyed the walk.  It was peaceful and still cool out.  And Sasuke was even walking more alongside him instead of stalking ahead.  Several streets later, they were walking along a cool blue river that just embodied rest and refreshment.  Harry even managed to shift himself so that he could walk on the side closest to it.  It was so clear he could see the smooth rocks below and the flash of spotted red and gold fish.

“Good morning!”

Harry looked up to see both Naruto and Sakura waving to them with bright smiles.  They were standing on a small wooden bridge with bright red railings.  Sasuke led him up onto the bridge until the four of them were standing in a rough circle.

“You’re late!” Naruto announced loudly while grinning from ear to ear.

“Dobe,” Sasuke hissed in a much more sharp tone than he’d used with Harry.

Naruto just blinked back at him.  “Damn, teme, what crawled up your ass and died?”

Sakura-chan shoved Naruto hard enough to send him stumbling into the railing.  She smiled prettily at Harry, however.  “How are you?”

Harry just shrugged, embarrassed, and hoped he wasn’t blushing.

“Are you hanging out with us today?” Naruto asked.

Harry shrugged again and managed to return a friendly smile.  Sasuke cut him off before he could reply however.  “Kakashi-sensei seems to think he should,” he muttered darkly.

“He does?” Sakura-chan asked.

“Alright!” Naruto cheered over her.

Sasuke just glared some more.

Harry sighed and looked away.  There was a stiff cool breeze sweeping up from the river.  It toyed with Harry’s bangs as he inhaled deeply the smell of water life, morning dew and green leaves.  “So where is Kakashi-sensei?” Harry questioned.  Maybe he could keep things from getting tense again.

He didn’t expect all three of them to laugh.  Or rather, Naruto laughed, Sakura-chan giggled and Sasuke snorted.

“What?” Harry asked.  He didn’t mind being the joke occasionally, but he at least wanted to know why.

“It’s way too early for Kakashi-sensei to be here!” Naruto replied between gaffs.

Harry frowned.  “Then why are we here so early?”

The three of his escorts glanced at each other.  Sasuke then shrugged.  “Kakashi-sensei is an idiot,” he announced before moving to lean against the bridge rail and seemingly settling himself in for a long wait.

Well, that was helpful.  Harry turned to Sakura-chan.  “Huh?”

Sakura-chan smiled but there was something about the tenseness of her face that made Harry feel a little nervous.  “Kakashi-sensei had his own _particular_ conception of training.  He’ll be along eventually.  Hopefully.  He better.”  She muttered the last part so darkly that it made Harry glad he wasn’t Kakashi-sensei.  There was clearly some history there.  It reminded Harry of some of his own eccentric professors.

So he smiled politely and asked “About how long do you think it’ll be till he gets here?”

Naruto shrugged and nimbly leaped up to sit on the railing.  “Could be half an hour.  Could be three.”

Harry’s eyes widened.  “Oh,” he commented weakly.  “What – what do we do until then?”

“We wait,” Sakura-chan replied simply.  She moved to daintily sit herself.  She opted for something closer to the ground than Naruto.  Harry moved to mimic her, settling himself down on the smooth weathered wooden planks.

Naruto smiled down at both of them before hoping down and turning to face them.  He winked at Sakura jauntily before turning to grin at Harry.  “I know!  You wanna see a cool trick, Harry-kun?”

Sasuke stirred suddenly, his relaxed posture transforming instantly into a sharply focused glare.  “Dobe, _no_.”

Harry pointedly ignored him and grinned back at Naruto.  “What kind of trick?” he asked happily.  He’d been party to a number of tricks and pranks due to his _informal_ education at Hogwarts.  The Weasley twins would be thrilled if he learned something new he could share with them.  Besides, his cousin needed to learn to lighten up.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Sakura-chan piped in, clearly trying to mediate.  It was a half-hearted effort at best.  She glanced nervously over at Sasuke.  That deference alone made Harry feel stubborn enough to try and push the point.

“I wasn’t thinking anything big, Sakura-chan!” Naruto objected.  He sounded like he was _trying_ to sound innocent – and like the attempt was more challenging than it should be.  “Just something little.  You know, to help him understand and everything.  Come on!  Harry’s probably never even seen anything.  We ought to teach him a jutsu!”

“He’s not a shinobi,’ Sasuke growled back.

“Yeah, I know – ”

“He probably can’t even draw on chakra,” Sakura-chan added warily.

“Sure he can!” Naruto confidently objected.  “Can’t you Harry?”

Harry blinked as his attention was jerked back and forth between the three of them.  “Sure, I can,” he replied automatically, before tilting his head to the side and asking “What’s chakra?”

Sasuke snorted again and Harry would almost swear he even smiled a little.  Or smirked.  Which was close enough, even if it was a bit sarcastic.

Sakura-chan and Naruto both flinched as if he’d said something embarrassing, but then Naruto laughed.  “Chakra’s easy!” he boasted.  “Just watch this!”

And he slammed his hands together, some fingers pointing one way, others twisted in another direction.  There was the sudden tickle of almost magic in the air, coming out from Naruto.  It felt like it was pushing against Harry’s skin, whereas real magic had always seemed to be pulling him inward.  The same, but different.

And then Naruto was moving his hands, rapidly twisting fingers into new and different combination, and the not-quite-magic twisted as well and changed and formed something new with a very audible – smoky – _pop_!

And then there were two Narutos.

Harry blinked and tilted his head to the side.  He’d heard of illusions, but never one so real looking.  He scooted forward enough to reach out and brush his hand hesitantly across one of the legs of the new Naruto.

“Oi!  That tickles!” it shouted before scrambling backwards.

Harry blinked again and then slowly grinned.  “That is bloody amazing,” he announced.

Both Narutos smirked.  “Isn’t it?”

“How’d you do that?” Harry asked.  He wanted to try poking the duplicate again, but he didn’t know if that would be rude.

“I’m awesome, that’s how,” Naruto replied, in stereo, without missing a beat.

“Naruto!” Sakura-chan snapped wearily before leaning over and flicking one of the clone’s ears.  It yelped before suddenly disappearing in a dense cloud of smoke.

It was quite flashy and Harry was almost tempted to clap.  It really was a cool trick.  He was certain the Weasley twins could cause all kinds of mischief with something like that.  The possibilities were actually kind of frightening.  Two Weasley twins were bad enough.  If they could start making duplicates of themselves…Which of course meant he had to learn how to do it.  “I’m serious,” he said.  “How’d you do that?”

Sakura-chan finally took pity on him.  “It’s ninjutsu,” she explained.  “He uses molded chakra to create a physical, if somewhat unstable, replica of himself.”

“Hey!” Naruto protested.  “There’s nothing unstable about my clones!”

“Except their maker,” Sasuke murmured so quietly that Harry _almost_ didn’t hear it.

Was that a joke?  It sounded like a joke.  Harry glanced over at him covertly, but Sasuke was looking away, his eyes slowly panning across the distant tree line.  Harry sighed and turned back to Sakura-chan.  “But what is chakra?”  It sounded an awful lot like magic, but Harry wasn’t going to risk breaking the Statue of Secrecy by saying so.  Besides, while it _felt_ like magic, it also _didn’t_ feel exactly like magic.

Sakura-chan smiled brightly and sat up straighter.  She folded her hands daintily in her lap and proceeded to explain to him all of the theories behind chakra like a seasoned professor.  He managed to follow the basics of it.  Chakra came from the body and gathered in certain centers of the body.  Shinobi then used this energy and shaped it to their purposes.  It was a little too spiritual for Harry, however, and he wished he had Hermonie there to explain it to him.  He was sure she would have understood completely what Sakura-chan was saying.  Hermonie could probably even have compared it elegantly to something in magical theory.  Harry had never stopped to ask _where_ magic came from.  He was just thankful that it was there.

“You wanna try, Harry?” Naruto asked.

“It’s a lot more complicated than it looks,” Sakura-chan warned.  “Remember how much trouble _you_ had, Naruto?”

“It doesn’t hurt to try,” Naruto retorted doggedly.  “What do you say, Harry?”

Harry shrugged, smiled and carefully kept his hands out of his pocket and away from his wand.  “Sure.”

“Great!” Naruto exclaimed.  “Now, put your hands like this…” he said as he positioned Harry’s fingers exactly as he wanted them, folded together and overlapping _just_ so.

“No, no,” Sakura-chan interrupted.  She sighed and reached over to fix Naruto’s work.

Harry chuckled as the two of them bickered back and forth over the proper technique and who made a better teacher.  “So now what do I do?” he finally asked, since they seemed to have forgotten about him.

“Well, you have to focus chakra into your hands, shaped by the seals you’re making,” Sakura-chan explained.  “Does that make sense?”

Not really, but that had never stopped Harry before.  He hummed non-committedly.  His fingers ached a little from holding them in an unnatural position for so long.  They itched to wrap around the warm comfort of a wand as he tried to focus.  It couldn’t be too hard.  He’d felt what that chakra stuff was supposed to be like.  But it was still something different, something foreign.  Harry narrowed his eyes and focused all of his attention on the feel of his own hands.  If he concentrated, he could almost feel something like a static shock running across his skin, in his muscles, through his bone and into his hands…

“Yo!” Kakashi-sensei announced as he appeared with a flash and a bang and a cloud of smoke.

“Argh!” Harry’s body spasmed as he instinctively tried to recoil away.  Sitting with his legs crossed on the ground and with his hands twisted together made jumping back awkward to say the least.  He toppled over onto his side, just barely managing to catch himself before he bashed his head on the wooden boarding.  Harry considered his reflexes fairly good.  Quidditch and DA Club had sufficiently demonstrated that to him.  But bloody _hell_ – Kakashi-sensei had to stop doing that!

“Watch it!” Sasuke snapped angrily even though Kakashi-sensei was no where near him.

“You’re late!” Sakura-chan and Naruto yelled before rudely pointing at their teacher.

Harry shoved himself back into a much more dignified position.  He was pretty sure he’d managed to pull something in his hands in the ruckus.  What a stupid way to hurt himself.  Harry carefully stretched out his hands in his lap and hoped no one noticed.

Everyone else seemed busy staring at Kakashi-sensei.

“You’re – you’re early,” Naruto stuttered.  “I mean, you’re late, but you’re not Kakashi-sensei late.”

Kakashi-sensei smiled and bonked Naruto on the head.  “I got held up delivering food to poor malnourished orphans but unfortunately it didn’t take as long as I would have liked,” he explained cheerfully.

Harry flushed an angry red.  He was not malnourished!  Though the donuts had been rather good…

“Lair!” Naruto and Sakura-chan retorted, loudly and in perfect sync.  Apparently they didn’t have a lot of faith in their teacher.

“Hmm,” Kakashi-sensei pondered out loud.  “And here I thought you all would like to get in a little extra training.  But if I’m wrong, then I can come back later…”

“No, no, no,” Naruto said quickly.  “We want to train!  We were even showing Harry how to do some simple jutsu.”

“Oh, really?” Kakashi-sensei asked.  “I do hope you weren’t attempting to train a foreigner in ninjutsu without the permission of you superior.”

“Harry’s not a foreigner!” Naruto argued.

“And there’s a reason only specific chunins and up are considered qualified to teach,” Kakashi-sensei continued.  “My students wouldn’t be that reckless, would they?” 

There was a long, heavy pause and Kakashi-sensei repeated himself.  “Would they?”

“No, sir,” all three of them muttered. 

Kakashi-sensei stared at each one of them long and hard – even Harry.  Then he smiled blithely.  “Good.  Let’s go.”

Sasuke interrupted before any of them could move.  “I don’t think that it would be appropriate for Harry to accompany us.”

Naruto started to argue immediately, but oddly enough, Sakura-chan seemed pleased by something Sasuke had said.  Kakashi-sensei merely canted his head to one side and stared.

Sasuke scowled.  “It could be dangerous.”

“I think I can manage to keep your cousin out from underfoot,” Kakashi-sensei replied.  “Besides, we wouldn’t want to leave poor Harry-kun all alone, now would we?”

Sasuke’s frown darkened even further, but he said nothing. 

To be honest, Harry would much rather come along than be left behind.  Sure, he could have tried exploring the city on his own, but he still wasn’t completely confident in this translation-jutsu thing.  While it worked remarkably well most of the time, it still occasionally messed up.  Sasuke’s friends were very forgiving of his confusion, but he wasn’t exactly eager to test that patience in the city alone.

For all of Kakashi-sensei’s supposed faults, he seemed very conscientious of Harry’s well-being.  He wasn’t used to someone fixing his problems for him.  Did the older man do it because he saw Harry as too weak or too incompetent to take care of himself?  He didn’t see Kakashi-sensei doting on any of the others – but then again, he was beginning to suspect that Kakashi-sensei was rarely blunt with his true objectives and quick to taunt instead.

Kakashi-sensei led them away from the city and to a clear, grassy field.  The teacher stopped by a tree on the edge of the field and turned to his students.  “Battle Royal or Tag-Team?”

All of the playful shoving and chatter disappeared and three sets of eager eyes focused in on their teacher.  “Battle Royal,” they all said together before exchanging a meaningful look between the three of them.  It reminded Harry of the looks Ron and his brothers would exchange right before a Quidditch scrimmage.  A whole lot of excitement, flavored with a dash of blood lust.  Harry couldn’t help it.  He snickered.  He almost wished he could join in.

Kakashi-sensei waved them away lazily.  “Get to it, then.  Harry-kun and I will just relax over here under this tree.”

Sasuke moved to follow his teammates but then hesitated long enough to send a glare back at his teacher.  “Don’t read that crap in front of my cousin,” he demanded.

Kakashi-sensei’s one visible eye rolled.  “Harry-kun’s almost as old as you are.  I’m sure he’s old enough to understand the basic concepts.”

“It’s still filth, Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura-chan interjected.  “You ought to know better.”

Naruto grinned slowly and added, “And I’ll tell ba-chan.”

Kakashi-sensei’s eye narrowed and his stance shifted subtly.  “The three of you had better start training or I might decide to assign some more _structured_ exercises.”

The three of them paled ever so slightly before hurrying over to the other side of the field.  Harry watched after them, impressed by how quickly, and seemingly effortlessly, they crossed the distance.  Kakashi-sensei sighed and muttered “brats” as he moved under the tree.

Harry followed him obediently, but couldn’t help but ask, “Read what?  What are they talking about?”

Kakashi-sensei took his time settling himself comfortably underneath the tree and silently pulled out a bright orange book.  It looked like the same one Harry had seen the older man reading yesterday.

“I don’t get it,” Harry finally admitted.

Kakashi-sensei blinked, once, then smiled slowly.  “Would you like to read a little?  You’re a little young for it, but boys will be boys.  I’m sure you’ve managed to get your hands on something similar at some point.  After all, a boy resourceful enough to spend a little time in the girls’ bathroom – I’m sure you’ve managed to read a book as excellent as this.”

Harry blanched and edge away.  He had a feeling he knew exactly what kind of book it was.  “I think I’ll pass,” he replied weakly.

Kakashi-sensei feigned surprise and Harry was a little perturbed to realize he could tell it was a feint.  “My, my,’ Kakashi replied.  “Are you one of those boys who doesn’t like that kind of thing?” Kakashi-sensei archly asked.

Harry scowled back at him.  He’d been living in a boys’ dormitory for five years and had been in and out of enough locker rooms to know exactly what kind of question that was.  The answer didn’t matter nearly as much as the challenge.  “I’m not answering that,” Harry announced with the weight of all his hard earned maturity.

As if to mock his calm, Kakashi-sensei laughed suddenly and unexpectedly.  “Kids are so entertaining.”

Harry glared at him.  He opened his mouth to reply sharply that he was not a kid, but managed to think better of it before he proved the other man’s point.

Then the ground vibrated underneath Harry’s feet and there was a sharp _crack_!  Harry turned in surprise.  He could just barely see Sakura-chan’s pink form raising herself up out of a freshly created crater.  “What?” Harry started to ask, but then a blur of black and blue rushed at her.  It seemed to materialize all of a sudden with a sharp ring of metal sliding against metal before the form streaked away again.  Sasuke disappeared just as Naruto suddenly rushed at Sakura-chan.  All ten of the Narutos.  They bellowed bravely as they charged, and disappeared in blooming puffs of smoke as they came close enough for Sakura-chan to reach them.  Sasuke dashed along the left side and took out a couple more.

“I imagine it’s rather impressive from the perspective of a civilian,” Kakashi-sensei commented without looking up from his book.  “Though I must admit, they’re at the level now where my presence is rather unnecessary.”

“You don’t think that’s impressive?” Harry asked without looking away from the melee.  He didn’t think he could tear his eyes away.  They made it look so easy and graceful.

“That?  No.  Not impressive,” Kakashi-sensei confirmed.  “Impressive is rarely that blatant.”

 

* * *

 

The wind whistled in her ears in a symphony all its own.  Kunai slicing through the empty air just above her head sang sharply.  The roar of wind as she moved back, up and around made her ears ring.  The buzzing, hissing noise chakra made when it displaced sweet oxygen as it discharged and the rushing whoosh as air rushed back in.  Battles were never silent.  Even without the words, the grunts or the sharp cracks of shattering earth and bone and steal, battles were never silent.  The very air itself reverberated like a captivated audience. 

Sakura let the noise wash across her.  It was as familiar to her now as the sound of her own name.  Familiar.  Almost comforting.  She disregarded it with practiced ease even as she lost herself into its natural rhythms.  She opened her stance slightly and twisted smoothly to the right as another Naruto clone made a grab at her.  She would have taught it a lesson with her fist, but she was otherwise occupied slamming her heel through the one behind her. 

Fighting Naruto’s clones was always a unique experience.  They were unpredictable in the way only Naruto could make them.  Nearly entirely self-sufficient, his clones were capable of complex maneuvers and prone to using just as unorthodox methods as their maker.  For all of their autonomy, Naruto’s “practice” clones were more easily dispatched.  He didn’t pump as much chakra into each of them, and because of that, they fell apart beneath her blows like tearing paper.  As disturbing as it was to feel her fist sliding _through_ her teammate, she supposed it was better than feeling muscle and bone tearing and breaking.  Naruto’s clones were remarkably independent.  If he made them any more stable, she’d actually have to watch his body crumple.  Even knowing they were nothing more than molded chakra, the image was very powerful.  The kind of that resurfaced hours later.

Someone had suggested once, after watching Team 7 practice, that Naruto wasn’t trying hard enough, that if he was going to use clones he ought to make them properly.  Surprisingly, it was Sasuke who pointed out the illogic of such an approach.  His reply had included some rather scathing remarks about Naruto’s acting ability, Naruto’s intelligence and Naruto’s ninjutsu skills – but even he agreed that a field full of dying Narutos would be a bad thing.

So when she threw yet another Naruto over her head and into two more, there was no lingering feeling of flesh beneath her fingers.  Just harmless smoke brushing against her.  Hiding Sasuke’s approach.  It was all the help he would need.  He came up on her left, fast and low and completely deadly.  She twisted around desperately to meet him.  Sasuke was the real threat in this strategy.  The Narutos just the distraction.  A kunai slipped into her hand smoothly.  She held it loose barely even long enough for the stutter of a heartbeat before he was on her.  The shock of his weight and the blow reverberated up her arm.  It wasn’t enough to damage anything, even if it felt like her very muscles would shake loose.  The metal clanged together before slowing sliding off in a screech of straining steel.

Sakura kept her feet beneath her and tried to shove him off balance.  She didn’t expect it to work.  She did expect the knee that came flying up toward her.  He was close enough now that a jutsu would be reckless but Sasuke didn’t come to team training to work on his ninjutsus.  He came to practice his taijutsu.  It was nearly as punishing.

She wouldn’t be able to dodge his knee completely.  Not without opening herself up to the kunai still in his hand.  And another Naruto was coming up behind her to try and pin her down.  So she twisted into the hit, not away, coming up inside Sasuke’s guard.  She didn’t have enough space to land her own hit, but she managed to position herself so that his knee came up more along side her and less dead center on her chest.  It still knocked the wind out of her. 

She flicked the fingers of her free hand down.  His right side was completely open to her like this.  All it would take would be one senbon or one carefully controlled chakra slice and she could split his side wide open.  And he knew it.  The second her fingers started to move, before she could even start to form her next attack, he released her and sprang away.  Scoring a hit would have been nice for her ego, but merely gaining her freedom again was acceptable. 

She shoved the kunai in her hands backwards into an approaching Naruto and leg swept the next one before springing back herself into a clear patch she’d made.  “What is this?  Gang up on Sakura day?” she muttered darkly.

All of the Naruto’s grinned simultaneously.  “Training!” they chirped together like an over eager pack of puppies.  Except puppies never had that vaguely violent gleam in their eyes that promised embarrassment at the least if they caught her.

Sasuke shifted into view, a dark smudge in a sea of orange and yellow.  Sasuke didn’t grin, but his smirk was almost as annoying.  He canted one hip to the side, tilted his head and drawled in a manner disturbingly similar to their sensei.  “You said you wanted to work on you melee strategies.”  He was enjoying this just a little too much, the bastard.

A part of her, buried deep down at the moment beneath her training and her focus, was still giddy at the sight of him so relaxed and almost even happy.  The rest of her was busy glaring at him.  With a flick of her wrist she sent three shuriken flying at him.  “I declare war,” she drawled back at him.  It was part of an old child’s game they played at the academy, but Naruto picked up on it right away.  Dozens of pairs of eyes shifted sly from her to him and their grins turned even more feral.  Sasuke had the good grace to grimace before darting away.  Naruto was on him before she could even catch her breath.  Sakura was proud of her abilities and her progress, but she didn’t harbor any illusions about her boys.  She was warm up for both of them.  Fighting each other – now that was the real training for them.

But that didn’t mean she was going to sit this one out either.  If they were going to help Sasuke train, then it was going to take two of them.  Just like it took two of them to help her train.  With a roll of her shoulders, Sakura re-centered her focus and shot out after them.

Naruto’s clones were disappearing one right after another and Naruto wasn’t wasting the time to recreate them.  He simply charged in himself.  He swung his fist in what appeared to be a clumsy manner, one that hid a surprising amount of force and precision.  Naruto’s own personal fighting style.  The two of them crashed into each other.  One of them lost his balance, and together they went tumbling to the ground. 

Sakura took advantage of the confusion to leap up, over Naruto’s back and down towards Sasuke’s head.  She caught a glimpse of spinning red eyes before the tangle of limbs jerked to the side and she had to pull back her punch or risk taking off Naruto’s head.  She rolled forward to keep up with them.  Sasuke tried to pull away, but Naruto had attached himself firmly by one hand with the kind of determination only he could manage.  Naruto was grin was so wide she could see the hint of fang in his mouth.  There was something distinctly cat like about him at times like this, playful but dangerous.  Like a lion batting about a toy – or in this case, something more like a slippery panther.  The thought made her giggle even as she slipped passed Naruto, trying to score a hit.

Sasuke wasn’t having that and managed not only to twist himself free but to shove Naruto into Sakura.  This was why too many clones could be a bad thing.  Even the most graceful of shinobi could trip over an ally just as easily as any trap.  The trick was not to get tangled up in one another.  Naruto and Sakura had years of practice at avoiding this.  He pushed her left, she pulled him right, and in the process they managed to switch positions using each other’s momentum.  It took them less than a second to straighten themselves out, but that was all the opening Sasuke needed.

Sasuke had apparently tired of the cat and mouse game of tag.  He pulled his hands together and Sakura knew immediately what to expect.  A summons.  Despite all of his practice, Sasuke still occasional had difficulty controlling his snakes. Because of that, it was often the first jutsu he’d call on during their practice sessions.  The safety of the village was the best place to work out any possible weaknesses.  Often, he simply couldn’t summon as many as he’d like.  Or the wrong snake would answer.  Occasionally they wandered off against his commands.  Twice they’d attacked their allies instead of defending them.  Sasuke could trust Sakura and Naruto to avoid being bitten if the he lost complete control.  He couldn’t rely on that in the middle of a mission.

Neither Sakura nor Naruto objected to being his test subjects as it were.  They understood how important it was for Sasuke to re-master this skill.  They also understood why only Sasuke still struggled to control his contracted animal.  Some of the snakes had shown surprising loyalty to Orochimaru. After all, Orochimaru was the one who showed Sasuke how to summon them and it was with his permission that the contract that bound Sasuke to his snakes and his snakes to Sasuke was signed. The snakes remembered this and they remembered Orochimaru’s death.  They were…displeased with Sasuke’s life choices and they made their discontent known.

Sasuke finished the seals and called out for them.  Both Sakura and Naruto immediately altered their course.  Diving head first into freshly summoned vipers was not smart.  Sasuke’s snakes were deadly.  Even Naruto with his insane endurance had good reason to be cautious.  Even the smallest of Sasuke’s snakes could easily kill a man.  Four of them appeared at Sasuke’s summons.  Two large enough to present a physical threat and two tiny enough to use the distraction to sneak past their defenses.  It was an ideal set up and Sasuke smirked. 

She could see Naruto scowl as he put more distance between him and the animals.  He hated snakes.  He wasn’t scared of them, exactly.  There were few things Naruto was scared of other than silly things like ghosts and bad omens.  It was more that he had a deep, long festering hate for the creatures.  And it didn’t help that his toads didn’t like them either.

One of the big ones decided she looked mighty tasty and darted in her direction.  She shot a handful of senbon out at it.  The problem with snakes were they were so frustratingly hard to kill.  It took either a startling degree of violence or a very precisely applied paralysis to truly stop them.  Her needles passed over the summon’s head, however.  The attack was still enough to discourage it.  It fell back to try a different angle.

Naruto growled at the one going after him.  He’d moved back several paces but apparently had had enough of giving ground.  He lunged forward, ready to kill.

Sasuke met him half way, defending his snake, while at the same time giving it the opportunity to move into position for another attack.  Naruto and Sasuke exchanged blows.

Sakura pulled out two more senbon and set to practicing her aim.  In order to disable a snake, she would have to catch it at exactly the right spot near the skull.  While kunai target practice was child’s play, senbon was a whole other bag of tricks.  The technique was different.  The room for error drastically decreased.  Combined with the danger and challenge of a very alive and fairly intelligent target, it made for decent training.

She sent one needle zipping toward the snake circling Sasuke and Naruto.  The other she flung downward towards the one dancing with her.  She missed the far one but managed a glancing blow on the other.  The needle must have struck close to home since the snake lost control of some of its motor functions, but it wasn’t enough to fully disable it and as long as those teeth were capable of closing, the snake remained a viable threat.  Sakura had more maturity than to gloat over beating a summons, but she allowed herself a grim smile of accomplishment.  She hadn’t been using senbon long, but she was improving.

Her distraction nearly cost her dearly.  She hadn’t forgotten, exactly, about the two smaller snakes.  She just hadn’t focused on them either.  She did now.  One of them had managed to sneak close enough that it was almost to her sandals before she sense it.  That was the advantage of the very small snakes.  They were, ironically, the most difficult to control, but they made up for that through maneuvers such as this one.  Sakura leapt back immediately.  The snake leapt to follow her.  Its teeth gleamed in the early morning sunlight before snapping shut – empty. 

Enough with playing tag.  Sakura spun her kunai into a better hold.  She wasn’t going to waste her time trying to hit such a small target with senbon.  Let it come to her.  She had no doubt that her reflexes would prove faster.  The snake hesitated and Sakura sneered silently at it.  She had more patience than anyone else on her team.  It wasn’t going to goad her.

Her eyes flickered over to Sasuke and Naruto’s scuffle while she waited.  Just checking on her teammates.  A movement so natural it fit into her defenses as surely as the blade in her hands.  Her two boys were engaged in a complicated but graceful dance of dodge, feint, strike.  Without ninjutsu, the two of them were fairly well matched.  The snake snapping at Naruto’s heels gave Sasuke the advantage however.  And despite how much Naruto detested the snake, he laughed as he blocked and dodged Sasuke’s blows before spinning to punch the snake.  Trust him to attack it head on like that.  Personally, Sakura would rather keep her fingers away from its teeth.

Sasuke’s eyes flickered over to her just as naturally.  He was smiling.  Truly smiling.  Then his eyes darted behind her and across the field.  It took all of a half a second for him to take everything in.  And it took only another half a second for his face to pale completely.

Sakura’s heart both plummeted and stuttered fit to burst.

Harry.

She knew it.  It could only be him.  And somehow, despite everything, something made Sasuke look like the world was ending all over again.

She knew that look.  She’d seen it on the faces of her friends often enough, each one of them at some time or another.  She’d felt it on her own in ways she wished she could forget.

Without thought, without hesitation, without looking – Sakura turned and flung herself backwards, moving as fast as she ever had across the sunny grassy field to the only thing that matter right now.

This was what she trained for.  This was what they all trained for.  If only it would be enough.

 

* * *

 

Harry had seen many frightening and disturbing things during his short life time.  From dead men rising from the grave to vicious werewolves to dementors.  But nothing compared to Kakashi-sensei _giggling_.  Harry scooted his butt to the left a little more and tried to put as much distance between him and the insane man as possible.  Grown men shouldn’t giggle.  They definitely shouldn’t giggle while reading a dirty book.  It offended all sense of proper British behavior that Harry possessed.  And it made him blush like mad.  He did _not_ want to know what was in that book.  But all the giggling made it hard for him not to wonder…

Harry shook his head and turned back to watching the fight Sasuke and his friends called training.  If Kakashi-sensei was content to ignore him, then he ought to be able to ignore the older man.  After all, what better distraction could there be than what was happening across the field?  It was hard to see from such a distance, but he could make out parts of it. 

Sakura-chan was absurdly, frighteningly strong.  He’d never heard of someone being able to punch through stone, but he suspected there had to be a charm or potion somewhere that would let a person do such a thing.  And Naruto’s clones!  He’d thought the one alone on the bridge had been impressive.  Apparently Naruto could make dozens and dozens of them.  Sasuke was the hardest for him to follow.  His cousin was constantly disappearing and reappearing, a knife always in hand and perilously close to one of his teammates.  It had to be some kind of Apparation, but Harry had never seen someone use it so fluidly or so frequently.  They were definitely using magic. 

Harry couldn’t help it.  He scooted even closer to the action, eyes wide as he struggled to take in everything.  The more he watched, the easier it became.  He could almost keep track of Sasuke now.  It was a little like trying to follow the snitch in the rain.  Difficult, likely to give you a headache and leave you a little cross eyed, but certain not as impossible as everyone else made it out to be.  It just took a lot of concentration.

When Sakura once more tossed one of Naruto’s clones far away from her, Harry’s hands twitched.  She was so much smaller than Naruto.  It didn’t seem plausible that she should be able to throw him around like that.  But she made it look as natural as breathing and Harry wanted to know how. 

He ought to be taking notes.  Imagine what he could do with the DA club.  That particular arm twist move would be great for disarming a wizard.

The pace of the battle changed suddenly.  Most noticeably, Naruto’s clones disappeared and he stopped making new ones.  The focus seemed to shift to Sasuke, but they also moved further away.  There was a gentle slope to the field, but from this distance it was just enough that Harry suddenly couldn’t see much of anything.

“Drat,” he muttered before quickly pushing himself up to his feet.  He glanced back at Kakashi-sensei, but the teacher was still absorbed in his orange book.  He thought about calling out to the man, but frankly, after their passed few conversations and the increasing level of weird the man seemed to extrude, Harry wasn’t sure he wanted to start another conversation.  He was 80% sure the man said what he did just to mess with Harry.  But he wasn’t positive.  And he didn’t feel like pressing his luck.  He wouldn’t have to go far to see better, just a little higher up on the hill.  He’d still be in sight if the teacher ever looked up from his book.

Harry moved a few yards away until he could see again.  Naruto and Sasuke seemed to be struggling with each other while Sakura was backing away from something in the grass.  Harry smiled and flopped himself back down on the ground.  He folded his legs together, propped his chin on one hand and went back to trying to follow their moves.  The wind was chopper here without the protection of the trees.  It pulled at Harry’s clothes and sent his hair whipping at his eyes.  He brushed it aside with a growl of annoyance, but didn’t look away.

That one particular block looked like it ought to hurt like mad, but Naruto used it time and time again to stop Sasuke’s attacks.  Harry also made a small note to avoid getting in any kind of physical altercation with his cousin.  While Harry was confident he could at least hold his own against anyone at his school, he was beginning to suspect that Sasuke would clean his clock if they ever got into it.  Harry had lots of practice at avoiding Dudley and at outlasting Dudley when he couldn’t be avoided, but Dudley’s weight and cruelty had nothing on Sasuke’s grace and effectiveness.

Harry could just imagine the surprised look on Dudley’s face if Harry ever struck him with one of those chopping blows Sasuke used.

There was a rustle as the grass shifted and a faint hiss as the wind swept over the field.  A quiet Harry rarely ever experienced in the crowded suburbs of Little Surrey or the busy halls of Hogwarts.  The lack of noise made it easy to concentrate only on what he was seeing.  There wasn’t really any reason to glance down and to the right.

He saw the snake just in time to hiss out a protest.

The animal had already lunged, but its jaws snapped shut long before it reached its target.  It small, scaly body dropped on top of Harry leg, across his arm, and slithered to a halt cradled precariously in his lap.  It stared up at him, black empty eyes giving nothing away, but the utter stillness spoke louder than anything else could.

Harry’s heart had leaped up into his throat for one brief moment there.  He had a healthy respect for snakes and what they could do to a person’s central nervous system but he also knew most of them were alright chaps as long as you didn’t step on them.  Even before that first _incident_ at the zoo, he’d always liked snakes.  After discovering his affinity for him, he realized that most snakes liked him too. 

Harry shifted automatically to better support and balance the small reptile now curled in his lap.  “I’m sorry,” he hissed out, “if I disturbed your nest somehow.  Is that why you were going to bite me?”  It was always good to know why someone tried to hurt you and it never hurt to apologize in advance if you might have done something wrong.

The snake stared back at him silently.  Maybe it couldn’t talk.  Though it certainly understood him.  After all, it had stopped immediately once Harry spoke to it.

The wind shifted and suddenly Sasuke was crouched in front of him, eyes wide, knife in hand.  Harry’s head jerked up.  His hands automatically went to shield the small weight in his lap and the snake finally spoke in disjointed words, “Not so tight, human!” 

Harry instantly loosened his grip, but he kept his arms low so that the snake was almost out of sight.  For all the good it would do.  Sasuke’s eyes were wide and focused solely on the animal in his lap.  And they were red. 

Not the red of a sleepless night but the red of something unnatural.  Something dark and dangerous.  Something like Voldemort.  A shudder ran down Harry’s spine and he had to fight the urge to clutch his new friend tightly to his chest.  As if that would change things.

His cousin had red eyes.

He’d seen them before, of course.  When he’d first met Sasuke.  No one else seemed alarmed by the fact that something was seriously wrong with Sasuke’s eyes.  But sitting only a foot away from him, staring into those eyes, it brought up too many memories and too many developed instincts for Harry to completely hide.  He sucked in another breath through his nose and tried to resist the urge to scramble backwards.  He felt his own eyes widen impossibly as if he would be able to see more if he tried.

“Your eyes,” he finally managed to say.  “What’s wrong with them?”

Sasuke ignored his question.  “Don’t move, Harry,” he said.  It did not help ease the thrill of panic Harry felt rushing through his blood.  He needed space.  He needed to put some distance between them.  Give him a chance to breathe and think and try to understand.

“Harry!” Sasuke said in a sharp whisper.  “Don’t move!  I’ll get the snake, just – just stay very still.”

Part of Harry realized he was cradling the snake to his chest like a child with a stuff toy – not that he’d ever had a stuffed toy like that, but he was able to see the humor in it.  Could he be any more of a messed up freak?  “What are you going to do with it?” he replied sternly.  It was amazing how much easier it was to sound tough when he had someone else to take care of.  He was also careful to keep his eyes just shy of meeting Sasuke’s.  But he couldn’t help but repeat his question.  “ _Why_ are your eyes like that?”

Sasuke said something rough and low that the translator spell wasn’t prepared for.  Harry didn’t need it, however, to have a good idea what the word meant.  It wasn’t anything positive.  “It’s a bloodlimit,” he whispered quickly.  “It’s a special skill, nothing more.  My eyes are fine.  But you need to be very careful not to move.”  Sasuke very, very slowly shifted the knife in his hand so that it was angled to go around Harry’s arm.

Harry finally jerked back, scuttling awkwardly away.  He kept one arm up over the snake and felt it shift to slither halfway under his shirt, burrowing for cover.  “What are you doing?” he shouted. 

With one arm holding him up and another protecting the snake, he didn’t have a free hand to go for his wand.  Merlin, he hoped he wouldn’t need his wand.  His magic was his own.  He didn’t want to share it.  Not yet.  Something purely instinctive in him didn’t want anyone to know just how non-defenseless he really was.  Something shallower in him for once didn’t want to be the family freak.  And something so deep he felt it in his bones and in every frantic breath didn’t want to have to draw his wand on the first chance he’d ever had at a real family.

There was a pained noise from behind Sasuke and Harry noticed for the first time the crouched forms of Sakura-chan and Naruto behind Sasuke.  Their eyes were wide, scared and it just didn’t make any sense.  Harry quickly glanced back over his shoulder, trying to figure out why.  There was nothing behind him except Kakashi-sensei.  Who was standing only a couple of yards away, book missing and both eyes uncovered.  He had a red eye as well.  For some reason, that one eye alone didn’t seem as frightening as staring into Sasuke’s.  Maybe it was the long thin scar through it that made it seem more sad than anything else.

Sasuke made a grab for the snake.  He moved faster than anything Harry had ever seen before.  Almost too fast for him to even realize what had happened.  But Harry kept one hand firmly covering the animal.  “Leave it alone!” he shouted at him.  The last thing Harry wanted to do was get into a tugging match with the snake as the rope, but he didn’t trust Sasuke with his red eyes not to hurt it.

Sasuke backed off instead of wrestling for it.  He made a face like it pained him to have to retreat, but apparently he didn’t want the snake bad enough to risk angering it.  His eyes darted from the animal up to Harry’s then back down.  “I can’t – It’s not – ” he grimaced.  “I can’t control it.  It’s poisonous.  Please.  Just let me have the damned snake before it kills you.”

Harry scowled at him.  “It hasn’t done anything wrong.  I just startled it, that’s all.”

“It’s a summons, Harry!  They’re only trained to do one thing and that’s to kill.”

“It is not!” Harry argued.  “It’s just another animal.  Just because it’s a snake doesn’t mean it’s evil.”

“Actuallllly,” the snake hissed, speaking up for the first time since Sasuke had appeared.  “The sssmall-viper is true in his wordsss.”

Harry glanced down, pulling his arm back enough so that he could see its tiny head poking out.  “What?” he asked it.

“We are meant to kill,” the snake replied.  “It isss what we do.”

The snake seemed to calm as it moved itself up front his stomach and along his chest.  It seemed to want up by his neck, but its body was too short to make it to his collarbone.  “I don’t believe that,” Harry told it firmly.  “You didn’t bite me,” he pointed out.

“True,” the snake agreed, “But it isss ssso rare to find a genuine man-sssnake.”

Harry flinched.  He might like snakes, but he didn’t exactly appreciate being called a man-snake.  That just had too many bad implications.  Being a nose-less creature was just one of them.  But apparently the snake had no problem being called a killer.  It just didn’t feel like killing Harry.  Well.  That wasn’t bad, at least.  Not exactly good, but Harry would have to settle for it.

And it was as if the wind had stopped blowing suddenly.  It hadn’t, it still swept across the field as unfeeling as the sky above, but everything else seemed frozen.  Harry looked up slowly to find four pairs of eyes on him.  “What?” he asked, finally noting there had been a hiss in his voice once he stopped doing it. 

Crap.

 

* * *

 

Power raced through Sasuke’s veins as he shoved chakra into seals and out of his body.  He could feel it in his hands, his arms his legs and his feet as he and Naruto crashed into each other.  He needed it to withstand Naruto’s blows.  His powerhouse of a teammate had only gotten stronger as he got older.  Oh, his stealth skills where still the most pathetic outside of the academy, and he would be never noted for his careful chakra control, but years of channeling insane amounts of tainted chakra had not only given him access to impressively destructive ninjutsu’s, but it made hitting him like punching a brick wall. 

Sasuke could feel the smile stretching across his face as he pushed and shoved and was pushed and shoved back in return.  He could feel the steady trickle of chakra leaking out of him into his summons.  He had to concentrate to keep that bond whole.  But this was light sparring, and there was time enough to let himself enjoy the feel of straining muscles.

He’d never let himself make that mistake again.

How stupid could he be?  A lifetime of training and years spent surrounded by the most dangerous psychotic shinobi of his time, and he let his concentration slip like that!

It was Naruto’s distraction that made him pause.  Naruto hated the snakes.  He knew that.  And they hated Naruto.  Which was part of why he insisted on training with them.  If he was ever going to get back to full proficiency with his summons, then his teammates were going to have to learn how to work with them.  The best way to learn how to work with anything that came out of Sound was to learn how to work against them. 

When Naruto’s attention perilously shifted to the snake behind him and not the shinobi in front of him, Sasuke backed off.  He could have ended the fight there, but he was learning how to retrain himself too.  Konoha shinobi did not strike down their teammates in a spar, even if said teammate foolishly left himself open.  It was an important difference from Sound shinobi that Sasuke sometimes had to remind himself of.

That momentary lull gave him time to check on Sakura.  She was toying with one of his snakes but still conveniently occupied.

Then he checked on his cousin.

Harry was supposed to be sitting safely by one of the greatest nin to ever come out of Konoha.  There was little in the world that could get by the great Copy-Nin easily.  He was far from infallible, but certainly reliable.  Even as lazy and easily distractible as Kakashi was, he was more than enough protection for his cousin on a lazy Konoha morning.

Except Harry wasn’t sitting by Kakashi.  He was halfway across the field, within striking rang of several possible jutsus.  He was sitting relaxed but focused, eyes wide behind thick bulky glassed, mouth curved into a small delighted smile.

Except he wasn’t alone.

Somewhere in the confusion of kicks and punches and feints – he’d lost track of one of his snakes.  One of his most poisonous snakes.  Rakta-Najadika-Kapala was its name, if he recalled correctly.  These damned snakes and their names longer than they were.  Rakta was not the snake he thought he had to worry about.  It was young enough it didn’t care much about the change in masters.

He truly was a fool. 

He knew better than to trust a snake.

For one long frozen moment, Sasuke’s eyes locked on the distant form of his cousin.  A warm-bodied lump in the middle of a grassy field.  A cold-bodied killer hidden in that same grass.  Sasuke’s eyes had more than enough time to take everything in.  That’s what the sharingan did.  That was what his family and his body were valued for.  The ability to see everything and anything and know it at once.

He’d never make it across the field in time.  Not even a translocation would get him there fast enough.  He couldn’t be certain that its will to kill would not over power his command to banish it.

Sakura moved, but he moved faster.  Pushing as much chakra down into his legs as possible, his feet barely brushed the ground.  The field was too wide. 

The snake lunged.

His eyes had time enough to see the poison dripping from its fangs but his body could not match such speed.

And in the blink of an eye, it was over.  The snake lay draped across his vulnerable cousin, jaw shut – bloodless.

Harry stared down at it, frozen.  Had he even know?  The other teen opened his mouth and said _something_ that Sasuke couldn’t quite hear and the sharingan couldn’t quite decipher.  He didn’t look scared.  Which was good.  Snakes, like almost any other animal, knew better than any shinobi what fear tasted like.  Hope rushed through Sasuke like the cold tingle of a medic’s chakra.  That calm might just be enough to keep Harry alive.  With one last push of muscle and chakra, Sasuke cleared the distance and landed silently, motionlessly at his cousin’s side.

He had to get the snake away from Harry.  But Harry was curled around the snake like he was more afraid of _Sasuke_.  For someone who knew so little about the shinobi world, Harry was certainly disturbed by the sharingan.  A Uchiha shouldn’t be.  All of his life, it had been something Sasuke was proud of.  As much as he had hated and feared his brother, he had never felt the same way about the sharingan.

It made staying calm himself much more difficult than he ever thought it could be.  He was used to people following his orders.  Even Naruto tended to do what he wanted if pushed just right.  Harry seemed determined to do the opposite of everything Sasuke wished for.  And it had never been so important before to have complete obedience.  The alternatives were unthinkable.  At the same time, however, Harry was not a fellow shinobi that he could over power in order to gain respect from.

He also, apparently, had no fear.

Even though something about the sharingan obviously bothered him very keenly, he still refused to give up the snake.  He smothered it like a small child with a dog and yelled at Sasuke.  Damn it, damn the snake and damn everything. He couldn’t take the snake by force without endangering his cousin, and Harry seemed to have lost his mind, screaming at Sasuke to leave the snake alone.  It wasn’t the fucking snake he was worried about! 

“I can’t –” he swallowed those words before he could say them.  Harry didn’t understand.  This was his  
fault.  Sasuke’s fault.  “It’s not – I can’t control it,” he finally admitted, trying to clarify just how quickly this could all go seriously, fatally wrong.  “It’s poisonous,” he explained.  “Please.  Just let me have the damned snake before it kills you.”

If he had to beg, he would.

Harry still refused.  Sasuke wasn’t going to have any choice.  He was going to have to risk taking the thing by force.  If he was fast enough, this could all be forgotten.  If he wasn’t, he could only hope Sakura was truly as good as Tsunade. 

And then his cousin Harry went and did perhaps the last thing Sasuke expected.  He talked to the damn snake.  And not in the way addle-brained idiots talked to dogs as if the stupid mutts understood.  No, he _hissed_ at the damned thing and the damned thing hissed back at him.

The sound sent a crawling shiver down Sasuke’s back.  His fingers inexplicitly itched for a kunai.  It was one thing to hear his snakes talk among themselves, but they never spoke to him in a hiss.  It was the beauty of summons, they came equipped with the capacity for human speech.  Humans were not meant to learn the _summons’s_ communication methods.  The only person Sasuke had ever seen talk to a snake had been Orochimaru, and even then he typically limited it to whenever he was feeling particularly sadistic.

Those were not fond memories – and they clashed terribly with the picture of his civilian cousin cradling a living deadly weapon to his chest.

Harry’s head snapped up and his eyes darted back and forth.  He knew he’d done something he shouldn’t have.  His face paled before their eyes.   “What?” he asked. It was a passingly decent attempt at sounding nonchalant.  It might have worked if they hadn’t all been focused so intently on him.  He could have written it off as their imagination, or simply silliness, but they’d all heard him do it and even more disconcertingly, they’d all heard the snake reply.

Sasuke’s mind raced.  Harry had no chakra.  Or at least, nothing trained.  A good ninja could feel the difference.  He had no previous exposure to shinobi as far as they knew.  There was no clear logical explanation. 

Or at least none that Sasuke wanted to even consider.  After all, he’d never been able to confirm whether or not he was the first sharingan user Orochimaru had gone after.  It was conceivable that a vulnerable outcast like Harry could have come to the attention of the sannin.  If there was one thing Sasuke had learned over the years, it was never to doubt any of them. 

The sour taste of bile filled his mouth.  If Orochimaru did anything to his cousin…he’d find a way to bring the bastard back from the dead and show him the real meaning of sadism. 

“Well, isn’t that interesting,” Kakashi finally drawled.

Sasuke’s eyes stayed focused on Harry as the other young man paled even further.  He looked well terrified, the way Sasuke had expected to find him when he first realized something was wrong.  Oddly enough, the return to something expect was not as comforting as it usually was.  Harry flinched back from all of them.  He shifted his weight to free one hand and got his feet under himself finally, ready to bolt. 

Sasuke couldn’t escape the idea that only the guilty tried to run.  Harry _knew_ what he’d just done was a skill best kept hidden.  How many other secrets was he hiding?

“Creepy,” Naruto announced.  “That was creepy, not interesting.”

Sasuke could hear the scowl in his voice, could imagine the expression on his face.  He didn’t need to turn around to know how his teammate was reacting.  Even if they hadn’t spent years together, he would have had a fairly good idea just based on the way Harry reacted.  He went from looking scared to pained so fast Sasuke almost flinched along with him.

He didn’t correct Naruto, however.  It was true after all.  It was creepy. 

Sakura was, perhaps, more sensitive.  She smacked Naruto upside the head and yelled at him for being rude. 

Sasuke ignored them.  “Where did you learn that?” he asked darkly.  He would have rather waited until he had no witnesses but time was of the essence.  If his cousin was somehow connected to Orochimaru, even remotely, Sasuke would have to get him out of the village.  He couldn’t risk turning him over to Ibiki.  The interrogator and the rest of the Council would be relentless and unforgiving if they thought Harry had anything that would help them defend the village. 

“I – ”  Harry stuttered.  He refused to meet Sasuke’s eyes.  He looked ready to run.  It would a futile effort, but it wouldn’t be a pleasant one either. 

Sasuke grinded his teeth together for a moment, before forcing himself to narrowly relax.  Just enough so that with a focused effort he could release the sharingan.  He didn’t like the fact that Harry would not look him in the eye.  If the small concession would help smooth things over, then Sasuke could manage it.  After all, it would only take a second to bring it back into play.

“Harry,” he said carefully but firmly.  “Who taught you that?”

Harry’s eyes darted back again.  Apparently releasing the sharingan was a good idea, because this time his cousin’s gaze caught and stayed on him.  Harry frowned.  “No one taught me,” he replied.

Sasuke curse silently.  “Harry, this is important.  You have to tell me who.  Now.”

Harry just shook his head and frowned even more.  “I told you, no one taught me how.”

Great.  His cousin had apparently gone back to being frustratingly contrary.  What timing.  And Harry still refused to hand over the little monster in his lap.  “I need to know,” Sasuke repeated, trying to keep his voice calm.  “I have to figure out what to do.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kakashi raise his one eyebrow.  “Do, Sasuke-kun?” the man asked.  “I certainly hope you’re not thinking anything drastic.  You’re still on parole, after all.”

“Parole?” Harry parroted and Sasuke once more considered doing himself a favor and ending his teacher’s life.  Kakashi did that on purpose, the bastard.  Although it was an effective distraction.  Momentarily. 

Harry’s eyes narrowed once more.  “Yeah, what’d you mean to do, huh?  I – I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, and he almost sounded like he believed it.

“No,” Sasuke agreed through clenched teeth.  “Technically, you haven’t.  That doesn’t mean it’s not important,” his hissed.

“Sasuke’s right,” Kakashi announced, suddenly sounding much more professional and much less like the idiot he was.  “We need to know how you learned to do that, Harry-kun.  I’m afraid this is one secret you’re going to have to share with us.”

Sasuke spared a glare in Kakashi’s direction.  He said that like he _knew_ something about Harry that Sasuke didn’t.

“I told you!” Harry yelled back, face flushing.  “No one taught me how!  I just – ” he tapered off for a moment before glaring at all of them.  “I just did it one day,” said quickly before fixing his gaze very firmly on the snake in his lap and not at anything else.

Sasuke glanced over at his teacher.  He’d have said his cousin was lying, except nothing in his posture or tone suggested as much.  And he seriously doubted his cousin had mastered the fine art of hiding his lies that well.  Most shinobi took years of practice to get that good.  “How?” Sasuke finally asked. 

Harry started _petting_ the stupid snake and the thing put up with it.  If Sasuke had ever tried to pet one of the foul-tempered little beasts he would have certainly ended up with a perforated hand.  Harry made it look so natural it was kind of disturbing on its own new level.  “I don’t know,” he finally said.  “Not for sure.  I mean, apparently I’ve always been able to, but I didn’t know it till I was 11.  We went to the zoo, and there was this snake.”  He smiled slightly.  “I thought I was just talking _at_ it.  I didn’t realize I was talking _to_ it until it replied.  Shocked the bloody hell out me, actually.”  He glanced up again and grinned.  It was a vast and sudden improvement over his initial panic.  “It’s freaky.  I do know that.  I thought so too, you know?  But most snakes really are very nice.  Just like this one,” he concluded before proudly hoisting the poisonous thing up into the air like a child’s toy.  And the snake put up with it.

Sasuke, however, had to fight down the urge to slaughter his own summons.  “Put. It. Down,” he growled out.

Of course, Harry wouldn’t.  He simply tilted his head to the side and smirked.  “Scared of snakes?” he asked.

Naruto snickered and Sasuke added him to his list of people to kill today.  “No,” he grounded out.  “It’s my snake.”

That seemed to throw Harry off balance.  He finally lowered the snake and glanced back and forth between it and Sasuke.  “Really?  For someone who owns a snake, you sure don’t like it very much.”

“It’s a weapon,” Sasuke snapped back.  “A tool.  Nothing more.  It’s dangerous and you should not be handling it like a toy!”

Harry glared at him.  “You shouldn’t treat it like that.”

Before Sasuke could retort with something appropriately scathing, the blasted snake decided to join the conversation.  And only so that Harry could understand it.  Harry listened carefully, his head tilted towards the animal as it hissed at him.  After a moment, he opened his mouth and hissed back at it.  His teeth locked together as he hissed out between drawn lips.  It was not natural looking and seemingly impossible to follow.  Harry didn’t seem any happier with the snake, however, than he was with Sasuke.  And Sasuke didn’t know whether to take that as a good sign or not. 

Finally, Harry shook his head, too stubborn to accept whatever the snake was saying.  Then he turned back to Sasuke.  “What are you going to do with it?” he asked sharply.

Sasuke considered lying, but it was beneath him.  He had no qualms about lying when it served his purposes, but he wasn’t about to start lying about something as maudlin as the fate of one of his summons.  “Banish it,” he replied just as curtly.

Harry’s eyes widened.  “Kill it?” he asked sharply.  And once more the snake disappeared into the fold of Harry’s arms.

Sasuke felt like beating something senseless.  This was why he didn’t like people.  They argued with him and made things far more complicated than they should be.  “No, you blockhead twit!” he snarled.  “Banish it!  That’s what one does with a summons once their job is done and they are no longer needed!  The things are made to be all but impossible to kill,” he added darkly.

Harry didn’t even flinch.  “But where do they go then?” he asked relentlessly.

Sasuke opened his mouth to snap back but didn’t get the chance.  It was Naruto who replied.  “They go home, of course,” he said, then shrugged.  He shifted out of his crouch and flopped down on the grass bonelessly.

“Home?” Harry asked.  There was something about his tone of voice that wasn’t just hopeful.  It was almost slightly longing.  That was the only thing that kept Sasuke from yelling at Naruto for being an idiot.  Snakes didn’t have _homes_.

“Sure,” Naruto replied with a grin.  “That’s where my toads go, after all.  Back to the rest of their family.”

What on earth was the dobe talking about now?  Sasuke actually turned to stare at him over his shoulder.  They were toads.  They didn’t have families!

“You have toads?” Harry asked.  He said it in the kind of voice one used when inquiring about a mildly interesting development.  Normally civilians tended to take such development with a great deal more shock.  “One of my friends has a toad,” Harry informed them.

Naruto grinned proudly.  “My toads are awesome.  Way better than Sasuke’s creepy snakes.”

Sasuke glared at him.  The whole point was for his summons to be creepy.  It made them much more effective.  But trust the dobe to try to turn it into some kind of fault.  Just because he got stuck with something as childish as _toads_.

“Snake’s aren’t creepy,” Harry repeated, but he didn’t sound nearly as hostile with Naruto has he had moments before with Sasuke.  “But you’re sure they go home?  That – that doesn’t sound too bad.  Can he ever come back?”

“Sure!” Naruto answered.

“Maybe,” Sasuke snapped over him.

Harry glared at him for a moment, then sighed.  He pulled the snake back out once more and hissed something to it quickly.  The snake replied.  Team 7 stood motionlessly and watched with varying degrees of wonder, disgust and apprehension.  Finally, Harry carefully set the small snake down.  His eyes stayed on Sasuke however.  No doubt he didn’t trust him not to harm the animal.  His first instinct was to neatly remove the traitorous beast’s head, but even Sasuke could realize that that probably wouldn’t go over well.  It wouldn’t advance him in his mission to secure Harry’s compliance in order to ensure his safety.  So instead, Sasuke very slowly made the appropriate seal and demonstrated exactly how a  
summons was released.  With a soft pop! the snake was gone, the threat removed and the world once more under Sasuke’s control.

Everything was silent.

Then Naruto made an obvious show out of stretching and standing up.  He moved up to stand by Sasuke’s side and deliberately bumped shoulders with him.  “So, know any more cool tricks, Harry?” he asked.

Harry flushed again, and ducked his head down.  “No, not really.”

Sasuke watched his face carefully.  There was hesitation there, but honesty too.  Just enough mixed expressions to make it impossible to read a clear answer.  Sasuke’s eyes narrowed.  He’d have to watch his cousin more closely it seemed.  He believed Harry when he said no one taught him how to communicate with snakes.  Any skill mastered without chakra and seals had to be inborn.  Just because it had never previously manifested within the Uchiha bloodline did not mean it could not.  There were, after all, some nasty rumors about where they got their notorious bloodlimit. 

“Let’s keep this to ourselves, shall we?”  Kakashi announced suddenly.  All four of the teenagers glanced up at him.  He had his book out once more and didn’t bother to return their stare.

“Sure,” Harry replied first, sounding relieved.

Sasuke nodded his head sharply.  “Agreed.”  He certainly wasn’t going to argue.  Kakashi’s subtle order saved him the effort of threatening everyone present into silence.  While Tsunade had made every indication that she intended to treat Harry as any other civilian of Konoha, Sasuke had been a ninja long enough to learn never to trust anyone.  As long as no one outside of his team knew, then they could just keep his cousin’s _unusual_ talent their little secret.  If no one knew about it, then no one could use it against them, Sasuke was confident of it.

Even though he was a good enough of a ninja to also know no secrets stayed secret forever.

 

* * *

 

No one had much interest in training after the snake debacle.  All good humor that Sasuke might have had was long since gone.  He was back to being his broody bastardly self.  Sakura wasn’t much better.  She was quiet and thoughtful, that great brain of hers re-examining everything that had just happened, Naruto was sure of it.  And Harry…Harry was pissed at Sasuke-teme for some reason.  He was also twitchy.  It was funny for all of about 3.5 seconds watching Harry startle at every little thing, but then it just got worrisome.  They were still in Konoha.  There was nothing Harry should have to worry about.  Not with Team 7 watching his back!

Kakashi-sensei cut them loose with a drawled command to stay out of trouble.  That left the four of them walking slowly back towards the enclosed sections of the village.  Naruto worked at stretching out the stiffness in his right shoulder as he examined their merry little group.  Everybody was frowning.  Naruto sighed.  Great.  Maybe Sasuke-teme really was contagious.  In that case, they were all doomed to be depressed moody bastards at this rate.

“Oi!” he exclaimed loudly.  “Ramen?”  Because, really.  What could possibly be wrong in the world if there was a large steaming bowl of ramen in front of you?

Sasuke didn’t even grace him with a glare.  But Harry’s eyes flicked up at him before very deliberately looking away.  Naruto grinned.  He knew what that kind of look meant.  They were so getting ramen whether or not Sasuke liked it.

“Come on,” he wheedled.  “It’s practically lunch time.  We all got to eat any way, and ramen makes a great lunch!”  It made a great dinner too, and breakfast, but he’d learned that neither Sasuke-teme nor Sakura-chan would ever see the light.

One of Sasuke’s eyebrows twitched.  He finally looked up enough to glare at Naruto.  “Let’s go,” he snapped as if he were leading his troops onto a particularly gruesome battle field.

But it was still willing consent and Naruto could resist a small whoop of victory.  “Alright!  Ramen here we come!  And we can introduce Harry-kun to old man Ichiraku.”

It was late morning by then, and the streets of Konoha were full.  Just as it was a good day for sparring, it was also a good day for selling.  Mothers led their small children through rows of stalls as off-duty shinobi wandered leisurely through the village they worked so hard to protect.  Naruto led them eagerly through it all.  He knew every route to his favorite ramen stand, and easily led them around the more congested streets. 

Before Sasuke had a chance to change his mind, Naruto had the four of them standing just outside the greatest place in all of Fire Country.

“Naruto!” the owner called out merrily once he spotted them.  The old man wave them forward with the large spoon in his hand.  “How are you?  Haven’t seen you around the passed few days.”

Naruto smiled brightly.  “I know!” he gushed.  “I had to go days without anything decent to eat. It was horrible.”  He didn’t need to explain that he’d been on a mission.  Instead he smiled even more and quickly pulled Harry-kun to the front.  “I want ya to meet somebody,” he announced.  Both Ichiraku and his daughter looked up from their work, taking him seriously with the same kind of genuine acknowledgement that they always did.  “This is Harry-kun,” Naruto told them solemnly.  “He’s Sasuke’s cousin!” he whispered after that. 

Their reaction was all he could ever hope for.  Old man Ichiraku even dropped his spoon, while his daughter looked torn between disbelief and fainting dead on the spot.  “Cousin?” Ichiraku asked weakly.

“Dobe,” Sasuke hissed, moving to stand beside his cousin like he seriously thought the ramen shop owner and his daughter presented some kind of threat.

“What, teme?” Naruto snapped back.  He hadn’t lied.  Harry was Sasuke’s cousin.  It wasn’t like it was supposed to be a secret.  Itachi already knew.  There wasn’t any harm in at least letting a few good friends know.  Besides, Naruto had every intention of dragging Harry-kun here with him as much as possible.  It was only fitting that they be properly introduced.

But Sasuke was Sasuke, and had to make a big deal out of everything.  “I do not need you announcing it to the whole damn world, you idiot,” he hissed.

“Oh, get over it,” Naruto replied before pointedly turning away to lead Harry to a seat.  “What’d ya think they’re going to do?  Feed him to death?”

“That’s not the point!”

“What’s going on?” Harry demanded.  He’d stopped moving and was holding himself awkwardly half pushed into a seat.  He was also glaring in a very familiar way.

“Nothing,” Sasuke snapped.  “Clan business.”

“But it involves me,” Harry replied stubbornly.

Naruto edged slightly backwards, eyes darting from one Uchiha to the other.  He hadn’t really meant to cause a fight between the two of them.  It only made sense that Sasuke and Naruto should fight about everything.  That what they did.  But Harry and Sasuke were supposed to be family now, and family wasn’t supposed to fight with each other…excluding Itachi.  And Neji and his family issues.  And Gaara’s family…

Sasuke growled quietly but managed to keep his voice something close to polite.  “It’s not your concern.  I’ll take care of it.”

Harry didn’t accept what for Sasuke was a rather significant attempt at appeasing someone.  Instead he crossed his arms over his chest and growled back.  “I’m getting really sick and tired of people not explaining things to me because they somehow think it’s better for me.  Because of course _not_ knowing what the bloody hell is happening is going to help me, oh, so much, in knowing what to do when things get dicey.” 

That…made a whole lot of sense.  Naruto nodded sagely before turning to see how his teammate would take it.  It was the kind of logic Sasuke usually loved, so that ought to make everything better between the two of them.  For a moment, it looked as if Sasuke would argue.  But he snapped his mouth shut.  “Fine,” he sneered before huffily claiming the seat next to Harry.

Wow.  That coming from Sasuke was almost as good as a written apology.  Naruto smiled before flopping down on Sasuke’s other side.  “Miso Ramen for me!” he announced to Ichiraku. “What kind of ramen do you want, Harry-kun?”

Harry seemed a little flustered by Sasuke’s agreement too, and it took him a moment to answer.  “Um, pork?” he said hesitantly.

Ichiraku grinned back at him.  “Coming right up,” he announced once Sasuke and Sakura had placed their orders.

“I’ve never had ramen at a restaurant before,” Harry commented quietly when the silence dragged out.

Naruto leaned forward so that he could see around Sasuke.  “Wwwhaat?”

Harry blinked back at him. “Is it different from the stuff you buy at the store?”

“Is the sky blue?” Naruto retorted.  “Instant ramen may be one of the tenth wonders of the world, but it has nothing on Ichiraku’s ramen!  He makes his noodles fresh every day with his special super secret method.  His broth is literally famous through out Fire Country.  He even makes vegetables taste good!”  Which was a very good thing, because Ichiraku ramen was about the only time Naruto willing ate vegetables.

Harry’s eyes widened. “Oh,” he replied.  “I guess you’re right.  That doesn’t sound like the same thing at all.”  He smiled ruefully.  “Which is good, because I think I’ve had enough instant ramen in my life to last me forever.”

There was certainly no such thing as too much ramen, but Naruto let it slide.  Harry, obviously, had led a very deprived childhood to not know the wonders of freshly made ramen.

“What do you normally eat?” Sakura-chan asked from Harry’s other side.

Harry laughed a little and reached up to smooth his bangs down again.  He did that all the time, Naruto had noticed.  Maybe they needed to get him a haircut, or a headband of some kind.  Harry shrugged before answering.  “I guess I do eat a lot of ramen,” he said.  “That and macaroni and other cheap instant stuff.  It’s not so bad.”

Sakura-chan smirked.  “You can’t cook either, can you?” she asked with a sigh.

But Harry shook his head.  “Actually, I’m a fairly decent cook, if I may say so.  I do most of the cooking at home.”

Sakura stared at him in surprise before grinning broadly.  “Really?” she asked.  When he nodded, her grin turned even more feral as she looked passed him to Naruto and Sasuke.  “See?  Harry-kun can cook.  The two of you don’t have any excuse,” she informed them before turning her attention back to Harry.  “These two idiots can’t manage anything.  They can learn some of the world’s most complicated jutsus practically overnight, but they both manage to burn rice half the time.”

Harry laughed.  He glanced over at the two of them with a touch of sympathy but didn’t object to Sakura’s accusations.  He wasn’t foolish enough to pass up on being in Sakura-chan’s good graces.  Traitor. 

Sasuke was back to frowning, even if he’d seemed more relaxed sitting between their playful bickering.  “If you cook so much, why do you eat junk like ramen?” he asked.

“Ah, that’s – um, kind of complicated,” Harry replied.  His smiled had disappeared now too.  He reached out to fiddle with a set of chopsticks on the counter and didn’t explain any further.  The silence was so heavy even Naruto could feel it.  He sighed and grabbed his own chopsticks to play with restlessly.  Snapping them apart, he set to balancing one on top of the other, then adding a seasoning jar on top of that.  It took all of a few seconds for him to get a small tower going, but the simple physical activity helped him think. 

While _he_ didn’t see anything wrong with living off of instant ramen alone, he was mature enough to realize not everyone felt the same way.  Harry had already expressed a lack of appreciation for the wonder of instant ramen.  And it was weird that Harry would spend so much time cooking other food if he wasn’t going to eat any of it.  But Harry also clearly did not want to talk about it.  Which was stupid, because how could they help him with whatever was wrong if he wouldn’t tell them what it was.  But then again, Sasuke-teme was very much so the same way. 

Families were so complicated.

Sasuke was already turning towards Harry, that look on his face that said he wasn’t happy and wasn’t going to hesitate to start something.  Crap!  The two of them couldn’t start fighting again!  The food hadn’t even come yet.  Naruto dropped his chopsticks and started waving his hands at Sasuke, trying to get his attention.  The crashing sound of flying utensils and salt shakers did the trick for him. 

Sasuke spared him one withering glare and Naruto scrambled to come up with something to say now that he had the other teenager’s attention.  “Ah, um, what I mean is – Oh!  Ramen!  Hey, look guys, the ramen’s here!”  Naruto announced happily as Ichiraku slid a steaming bowl of noodles in front of each of them.  Ah, saved by the ramen.  Ichiraku had perfect timing. 

Harry seemed to feel the same way because he didn’t hesitate to dig in to his food.  He stirred his noodles thoughtfully after the first bite, then smiled passed a glowering Sasuke at Naruto.  “You’re right, this is pretty good.”

“Damn straight!” Naruto agreed before attacking his own meal.  He had his face half buried in his bowl when Sasuke finally regrouped.  He’d been hoping the other boy would just let it go for once, but Sasuke seemed determined to start a fight.  He hadn’t even looked at his food.

“You didn’t answer the question,” Sasuke growled.

Harry, in what Gai-sensei surely would have described as a very hip and cool move, did not even look up.  “And you never answer any of mine.”

“That’s different,” Sasuke snapped.

This time it was Harry who growled.  He dropped his chopsticks and shoved his bowl away.  “How?” he demanded, half turning in his seat so that he could glare at Sasuke.  From Naruto’s advantage point behind Sasuke he could easily attest that it was a pretty decent glare.  Definitely right up there with the Uchiha “I-have-had-enough-of-your-stupidity” glare.  “How is it any bloody hell different?” Harry continued.  “You won’t ever explain anything to me.  I’m not an idiot, you know.  I’ve had enough experience being lied to to know when someone’s full of shite and when someone’s hiding something.  How about you start actually explaining things to me and I might just tell you something!”

Naruto quickly slurped up the last of his noodles, barely managing not to choke only due to years of experience.  “Hey, hey, now, guys, no fighting at Ichiraku’s!”  It was a golden rule, after all, not to start trouble near Ichiraku’s, and if that kept the two cousins from going at it, then Naruto had no problem calling foul.

Except everyone just ignored him.

“It’s not your responsibility to know – ”

“Like hell it’s not!”

“You’re just a civilian and – ”

“ – you’re a stuck up prat – ”

“This is not up for debate!  Stop being such a child.”

Harry slammed his fist down on the counter and the entire frame shook ominously.  His ramen bowl even cracked dangerously, a thin trail of tasty broth leaking out the side.  “Go to hell, Uchiha!” he shouted.  “I didn’t ask for your help and I don’t want it!”

“That’s enough!” Naruto shouted over them.  “Both of you!”  He was on his feet already, empty ramen bowl forgotten.  He got a handful of the back of each of their shirts and tugged.  He had them across the street before either of them could manage to twist free.  They both glared at him, all of their anger now directed at a new and convenient source.  Good.  Let them whine about it all they wanted.  He was not going to let them ruin old man Ichiraku’s stall. 

“You’re both freakin’ idiots!” he told them.  “You hear me?  You both got this amazing one time chance to fix something and actually have a family and you’re both too damn stubborn to get it right.  Sasuke, stop acting like such an almighty-jerk and actually let someone help you.  And you, Harry, stop acting like we’re the bad guys here!  In case you missed it, we’re trying to help.  And if the both of you don’t start acting happy about all this, I’m going to pound both of you into the ground, I don’t care who you are or are not!”

There was silence up and down the entire street.  People were staring.  Sakura-chan was still sitting at Ichiraku’s, twisted around to watch them, eyes wide.  Ichiraku was busy trying to clean up the mess Harry had made of his bowl and deliberately not looking at them.  Sasuke’s forlorn bowl was getting cold.  Naruto didn’t care if he looked like a raving lunatic.  He was right, and that was all that mattered.  With a firm nod, he grabbed both of them by the shirt again and yanked them back to the stall.

“Eat,” he ordered both of them before shoving them back down onto their stools.  He stalked over to his own just in time to see Ichiraku place a fresh bowl in front of his chair with a wink. He blushed a little at that.  He didn’t mind saying what needed to be said, but it was kind of weird having someone else so clearly support him.  He brushed it aside, however, and followed his own advice and dug into his food.

Another bowl magically appeared before Harry.  He flinched again and finally broke the heavy silence.  “I’m sorry,” he said with a face so stricken there was no doubt that he was.

Ichiraku, being the great guy that he was, just smiled and waved it off.  “It happens,” he said before moving away.

It didn’t seem to make Harry feel much better, however.  He sighed, and merely stirred his soup in lazy circles.

“Is there something…in particular, that you wish clarification on?’ Sasuke finally said into the silence that hung over the four of them like a thick genjutsu.  He didn’t look up from his food when he said it, but he too was stirring his noodles aimlessly.

Naruto watched the two of them unknowingly mirror each other as he slurped up his own noodles.  At Sasuke’s words, Harry’s head jerked up to stare at him.  Sasuke took no notice of him, even as Harry grinned a little.  At least one of them was quick to forgive.

“There’s a lot of things I don’t understand,” Harry said.  “And I don’t like being helpless with no idea what’s going on.”

“The intention was not to disable you,” Sasuke conceded.

Naruto grinned brightly.  He caught Sakura’s eye from her place on the far end and they shared a smile.  “See?  No problem,” he mouthed at her silently.  She just rolled her eyes and relaxed her shoulders.

“Will you explain some of this clan business stuff to me?” Harry asked.  “I’ll admit I don’t know much about stuff like that.”

Sasuke just nodded sharply.  “There’s no reason to expect you would,” he replied but he managed to say it almost civilly.  If it came out sounding a little more like a mission leader briefing his team and less like a cousin, then that was still alright.  Progress was progress.  “The more complex aspects of clan politics don’t really apply to us any more seeing as there really isn’t a clan any more,” Sasuke trailed off, seemingly a little lost in his own words.  The hesitation didn’t last long, however, before he quickly continued on passed things that were better left unsaid.  “Don’t agree to anything with any of the other clans, and don’t accept anything from them either.  They might try to trick you into an alliance we don’t want.”

Harry thought about that for a moment before nodding, “Alright.”

“And don’t go anywhere with anyone alone,” Sasuke added after a moment of thought.  “As in, make sure one of the three of us is with you at all times.  Or Kakashi.  But no one else.”

Harry frowned this time.  “Why?” he asked.

Sasuke scowled at the question, but it was his thinking scowl.  Harry’s eyes narrowed in response and Naruto quickly tried to smile reassuringly from behind Sasuke’s big head.  “The sharingan,” Sasuke finally explained. “It’s a particular kind of blood-limit.  Which means it’s tied to the physiology of the Uchiha clan.”  His eyes darted quickly to Harry and back again.  “Your father was incapable of ever developing it.  That was why he was sent away.”

Harry didn’t glare or scowl.  He just looked really sad all of a sudden.  “That’s it?” he asked in a quiet and lost voice.  “They just got rid of him, just because of that.”

Sasuke looked up then, confused.  He seemed to know he was walking into a mined field, but he suddenly looked like he’d walked into the wrong one.  Naruto scowled.  What had he been expecting?  Or could he really not understand what it must have felt like?  To be brushed aside like that.  Didn’t he understand anything?  Naruto might never understand the pain Sasuke felt in losing his family, but Sasuke still needed to understand that there was a whole other level of pain from not even being wanted by your family.  Harry seemed to get that.  If Harry got it, then why couldn’t Sasuke?

Naruto frowned.  There was something important about that, but he just couldn’t figure out what.  Harry’s Aunt had seemed like a real pill, but she was still technically his family.  They let him live with them and everything, so if couldn’t have been too bad.  But it was kind of bothersome how much Harry seemed to know what it felt like to never be wanted. 

“It was better that than the alternatives,” Sasuke said slowly.  He seemed to be picking his words very carefully.  “Most clans would have simply killed such a child,” he said coldly.  Harry’s eyes widened, but it was the truth unfortunately.  Naruto had seen enough of the messed up interworks of various clans to know many of them wouldn’t hesitate to kill one of their own if they thought they had to.  Sasuke continued, however, really sticking to his word of trying to explain things.  It was probably the most Naruto had ever heard him talk in one sitting when there wasn’t a mission involved. 

“Without the sharingan, it would have been unlikely that he would ever have been able to properly defend himself.  But as a part of our blood, he still would have presented far too tempting a target to our enemies.  If such a child is not killed, it would likely eventually be taken, experimented on, dissected, then destroyed.  Leaving behind the possible knowledge of a weakness in the blood-limit that could then place the rest of the clan in mortal peril.  Sending him away was a kindness, at the risk of the rest of the clan if he was ever discovered.”

Harry stared, wide eyed and opened mouth through out Sasuke’s blunt description.  Being on the genin team of a blood-limit user, both Naruto and Sakura had been aware of such a disturbing possibility since they were very young.  They had been made aware of their responsibilities to their teammate and his clan if the worst should happen.  The body was not to be left behind.  As shinobi, even as genin, they had had enough awareness to understand the importance of such a gruesome task.  Poor Harry looked like he might lose what little of his lunch he’d had.

“That’s why you were so worried about someone finding me?” he asked.

After a minuscule moment of hesitation, Sasuke nodded.  It was true, it just wasn’t the whole truth.  And Sauske-teme seemed determined, even in the middle of his attempt to be more cooperative, to hide things from his cousin.  “You are now in the same risk that your father was.”

“And a risk _to_ you, as well,” Harry added.

Sasuke shook his head.  “No.  _If_ an enemy could find something useful, it would likely be too late to affect me.  And even if it did, it would only show that I am not as strong as I should be.  They, however, may not see it as pointless as I do.  And what matters is more what they think they can get from taking you, and less what they actually can.”

“Oh,” Harry replied quietly.  It wasn’t everyday that you found out people were willing to kill you.  Harry took it pretty well, in Naruto’s opinion.  He didn’t freak out the way most clients did and he didn’t get angry the way some shinobi did.  He just nodded and went back to his lunch as if nothing in the world had changed.  Naruto glanced at his teammates nervously.  Sasuke was watching Harry, but he didn’t seem disturbed by the lack of reaction.  He had that distant look he sometimes got when he was thinking too much, but he didn’t press the point.  Sakura-chan looked anxious, but she too seemed distracted by other thoughts.  Naruto sighed again.  This was taking entirely too much thinking.

 

* * *

 

Sasuke watched as Harry continued to merely pick at his food.  Obviously, clan politics were not an acceptable topic of discussion during a meal.  Not if it was going to distract his cousin this much.  He tried not to feel too justified at Harry’s obvious discomfort.   While he could see the logic behind Harry needing to have access to certain information, he was still responsible for controlling the amount and timing of such information.  It was not as simple as Sakura or Naruto made it out to be.  He needed to take his time, and manage this properly.  While too little could theoretically place Harry at a disadvantage, too much would only over stress the other teen.

Sasuke carefully kept his face blank, even as Naruto and Sakura both gave him questioning looks when he insisted on lingering.  Usually, he was the first one ready to leave, but they were not going anywhere until Harry had finished at least one bowl of ramen.  Maybe two.  Sasuke did not make the same mistake twice and they weren’t moving on until this task was accomplished.   Thankfully, neither of his team mates said anything.  Sakura seemed content to follow his lead and Naruto, hopefully, had said all he was going to say. 

Just remembering the humiliating lecture Naruto had subjected them both to made him flush.  He was going to beat that dobe within an inch of his life later.  He had no right to interfere the way he did.  But Harry seemed to respond well to it, all the same.  Harry always seemed to get along with Naruto easily.  It was frustrating that Naruto could manage so effortlessly what Sasuke had to struggle at.  There was no way Naruto was _better_ at it.  Naruto was oblivious and obnoxious and an idiot.  He just happened to get along with Harry better. 

Though Sasuke had no objections to taking advantage of it.

It was Sakura that suggested a tour of Konoha after lunch.  Harry agreed quickly, smiling once more and asking questions about the things they passed.  His irritable mood seemed to disappear.  They tried to explain to him the lay-out of the village, but it was always difficult for civilians to remember.  The placement of streets, buildings and checkpoints were intentionally set up to confuse the unfamiliar.  It would not work with a skilled shinobi, but it would provide some impediment to any lower level shinobi trying to force their way in. 

After that they showed him the Hokage monument.  Harry had shown a distinct interest in it since he first arrived.  So Sakura explained the history behind it, while Naruto related some of his more infamous pranks.  While the three of them laughed and shared stories, Sasuke followed close behind.  Naruto had taken point, his endless energy leading him to bouncy along ahead of them.

The hike up the side of the mountain was an easy one.  The path was well marked, the dirt packed hard from regular foot traffic.  The trees above provided just enough shade to keep the sun back while occasionally breaking to show views of the village below.  They passed a handful of shinobi on their way up and a group of civilian teenagers.  Everyone left them alone.  Their fellow shinobi were often focused on their own affairs, while the civilian teenagers knew better than to assume any level of familiarity with the shinobi their age.

When they reached the top, they paused to let Harry view the whole village.  There was no better advantage point to see all of Konoha than above the Hokage monument.  Across the edge that they stopped at ran a metal railing for the safety of any non-shinobi, whether civilians or children.  Harry didn’t hesitate to walk up to it and lean over that edge.  Logically, the railing should be more than capable of preventing him from falling over, but Sasuke still found himself sliding closer to his cousin.  Just in case.  If Sasuke ever fell for some reason, it would be a simple matter of attaching himself through chakra to the cliff side and walking back up.  If Harry fell for some reason, there would be nothing he could do but fall.

And if Sakura was laughing at him silently behind one hand, Sasuke was practiced enough at ignoring her.

“Is that the gate we came through?” Harry asked as he pointed to the east checkpoint.

“Yes,” Sakura answered before pointing out the largest building in the village.  “And that’s the Hokage’s tower.”

Harry nodded.  “Where’s the place we had lunch?”

“Right there!” Naruto pointed out before swinging himself up to sit on the railing as if that were its only reason for existing.  He danged his feet over the sharp drop and kicked them restlessly.

Harry squinted for a moment then made a small noise of recognition.  For a moment, Sasuke had been worried he would not be able to see the small stall.  He was not sure just how bad his cousin’s eyesight was.  The medical records on his father suggested that the malformation would become degenerative.  Harry’s glasses certainly suggested that he suffered form the same condition.  Despite that, he seemed to have no trouble seeing at a great distance.  Perhaps he could seek Tsunade-sama’s professional medical opinion on the problem.  If anyone could help his cousin, it would be her.

“Is that were Sasuke lives?” Harry asked.

Sasuke glanced up to see where he was pointing, and sure enough, it was the Uchiha district.  “Yes,” he answered.

“Why doesn’t anyone live near you?”

The problem with having a new cousin was he was constantly asking uncomfortable questions.  Sasuke managed to contain the sigh and simply answer the question.  It was straight forward enough.  “It’s the Uchiha compound.  As there are no more Uchiha, no one lives there.”

Harry’s eyes widened slightly as he stared at the large walled in complex.  “Only Uchiha’s lived in that whole place?  There must have been so many…”

Sasuke nodded.  “There were,” he said softly.

Harry glanced over at him.  “And they were all related to you?”

“Yes.”

“Which means they were all related to me, right?”

Sasuke scowled.  “Yes,” he snapped.  What a stupid question.  But Harry was not paying attention to him any more.  He was staring at the houses. After a moment, Sasuke realized he was counting the houses, one by one whispering the numbers as his eyes moved back and forth.

“Twelve families,” Sasuke told him.  “Fifty-one people all together.”  He had memorized every one of their names the day after it had happened.  He had not known everyone of them personally in life, but he knew each one of them intimately in death.  Twenty-eight of them had been adults.  Another ten about the age Sasuke was now.  The last thirteen or so ranging from infants to genin.  Forever frozen in time.  They would never change in Sasuke’s mind.  He would always see them the way he had that night.  Even as he grew older and stronger, they would forever remain the same.  And oddly enough, so had Itachi.  Seeing him again – it was as if no time had passed.  Part of him could not help but wonder if Harry would always be the same.  Would he get any taller?  Would he stay forever thin and gaunt the way Itachi was, or fill in the way most adults did?  Would he have children of his own? 

Sasuke stared at the remains of the Uchiha compound as his mind raced.  He could not imagine himself having children.  Ever.  Regardless of what village he fought for, or what friends stood beside him, he would always be an avenger.  Avengers did not have children.  Easy going civilians that were quick to anger and just as quick to forgive did.  That was the natural order of life, right?  Harry would likely follow that natural order.  He had no reason not to.

“As the only living Uchiha recognized by the village, the entire compound and everything in it belongs to me,” Sasuke told Harry.  “With your arrival, it now belongs to both of us.”

The fact that there was even an “us” nearly made Sasuke tremble.  He could not remember the last time he had been part of an “us.”  Other than maybe his genin team, that was.  But so much of even their history was filled with times when he was most certainly not a part of that “us.”

“Oh,” Harry said weakly.

“Yes,” Sasuke agreed, just as softly.  Then he turned away.  Shoving his hands into his pockets, he started for the trail that led down the other side of the monument.  The others trailed along behind him at a much more leisurely pace. Since Sasuke had taken the lead, Naruto automatically dropped to the back.  It was so ingrained for both of them that it needed no discussion.  Sakura seemed determined to continue with her tour.  She led them through some of the more interesting streets of Konoha. 

Eventually they walked passed the academy just in time to see some of the youngest students starting their kunai training.  Sasuke immediately fell back until he was walking along side Harry.  He was not going to take any chances.  Especially with academy students.  While most youngsters had a hard time hitting anything, it was still a possibility that one might go wide.  If Sasuke recalled correctly, Naruto managed to nearly hit three passing civilians all in their first day of practice.

“Are those knives?” Harry asked as he tried to see around Sasuke.

“Kunai,” he corrected, with a wince.  Maybe he did need to sit down with his cousin and go over some of the basics of shinobi life and combat.  He could not live in a shinobi village and not know what a kunai was.

Harry stopped in the middle of the road and stared at him as if he had just announced he was the Yondaime.  “You give kids knives?” his cousin squawked.  “Are you trying to get them killed?”

Sasuke frowned.  “They’ll get killed if they don’t know how to use them.”  There was nothing more pathetic in the middle of a battlefield than to be face with an opponent that never managed to master the basics.  All of the powerful jutsu in the world would not matter if a simple well aimed kunai was all it took.

“Iruka-sesnei won’t let them do anything too stupid,” Naruto added with a chuckle.  “After all, he managed to keep me alive.”  Sure enough, their old academy teacher was out there that very moment yelling at two boys for inappropriate behavior during a training session.  His voice carried surprisingly well across the otherwise empty school yard.  There were a lot of you-could-have’s and I-should’s in there.

All three of them shuddered a little just in memory.  Their academy days were far behind them, but there were some things that you never escaped.  An instinctive fear and healthy respect for their first sensei was one of them.  Iruka-sensei had ways of instilling an unholy dread into the hearts of every pre-genin that passed through his classroom.

Sasuke did not say anything, but he wandered over to the high wooden fence that separated the schoolyard from the surrounding area.  The wooden fence was dented, scratched and even bent in places despite the fact that it still had the warm slightly green look of freshly hewed wood.  The fences around the shinobi academy had to be replaced regularly for a number of reasons. 

The four teenagers leaned on the fence and watched the fumbling class.  Naruto snickered as one of the kids managed not only to trip over his own feet but nearly skewered Iruka in the process.  A fresh round of shouting came out of the man before practice continued.  Harry’s eyes were following each clumsy throw.  He seemed to have no trouble following Iruka’s barked instructions or the trajectory of each thrown projectile. 

Sasuke made his decision right then.  “I can teach you the basics of working with kunai,” Sasuke told him.  “If you want.”

Harry glanced over at him.  “Really?”  He sounded so excited about the very possibility that Sasuke felt like he had accomplished something.  Finally.

Now all he had to do was try not to screw it up.  “It would be logical.”

“Because someone’s trying to kill me, right?” Harry replied lightly.  He had shown no panic at the idea that his life might be in danger, and Sasuke was grateful for that.  He would never let anything happen to his cousin, so there was no need for the other boy to worry about it.  But when Sasuke nodded, Harry narrowed his eyes.  “Like that man at my aunt’s house?” he asked in a deceptively innocent tone.  Sasuke’s fingers tightened enough to crack the wood beneath them.  If he could suspect his cousin of conspiring, he would be convinced the twit did this to him on purpose.  He always seemed to have a way to catch Sasuke off guard with these stupid questions.

“Naruto and I are going to go say hi to Iruka-sensei!” Sakura suddenly announced.  She vaulted over the fence and dragged Naruto with her.  She made a hasty retreat, but not without sending a very displeased glare in Sasuke’s direction.  The warning was clear enough.  He was not going to get a better opening for explaining that man than now.

He still did not want to any more than he had the day before.

Harry was watching him expectantly, however.  He seemed to catch on that Sakura and Naruto left for a reason, and did not comment on their abrupt departure.  He simple turned till he was leaning back on the fence and facing Sasuke and stared at him.  Waiting.

“We already told you that he is the main threat,” Sasuke admitted.  He was not sure where to go from there.  Oh, by the way, the murdering psychopath is also his brother?  That Sasuke had been there that night, but could not manage to do anything to stop him? That he still had not even after all these years?  Yeah.  That sounded great.  He would rather face whatever horrors Orochimaru could come up with. 

“The guy with the red eyes,” Harry said, looking for confirmation.

Sasuke flinched, but nodded.  He had forgotten that Harry had noticed that small detail.  

“Like yours,” Harry continued.  “The thing you said was a blood something.  One of those blood-limit things you were explaining at lunch.  The things that are limited to only one family.”

“Yes, yes!” Sasuke snapped.  Hearing Harry painstakingly work through it to the logical conclusion was almost worse.  “He is my brother,” Sasuke finally admitted, hissing the words out so tightly they were barely legible.  “That – that man – is my damn brother and I am going to kill him.”  He looked up from glaring at the ground and stared back at Harry.  “I promise you that.  I will kill him.”

Harry stared back, wide-eyed, but without a hint of doubt.  “Your brother?” he whispered.

Sasuke grimaced but nodded. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Do not be,” Sasuke snapped immediately.  He hated it when people said that to him.  Constantly, as a child, he heard about how sorry people were.  Sorry did not fix anything.  It did not bring back his parents and it would not make him stronger.  Hearing how sorry everyone was would not help him kill his brother.

Harry did not back down, however.  Like his usual stubborn self he scowled.  “Well, I am.  You can’t change that.”

“You should not.”

“Why not?”

“Because!”  Sasuke sighed and tried to figure out how to explain it.  He did not understand half of the things he felt about his cousin.  How was he supposed to explain to him how he was supposed to feel?  “It was your family too,” he muttered.  “You should not….you should be mad too.  You should want him dead too.”

Harry then, of all things, smiled.  “Never said I wasn’t or that I didn’t.”

“Oh,” Sasuke replied, finding himself for once to be the one making such a stupid reply.

“But that doesn’t mean you have to be the one to kill him.”

Sasuke stared at him in shock.  Was he kidding?  “Of course it has to be me!” he snarled.  “Do you not understand?  I have to kill that man for what he has done!”

“Why?” Harry asked.  He had such a simple expression on his face, like he just could not comprehend it. 

Sasuke felt like tearing something apart.  “He killed my entire clan,” he hissed out slowly, stressing each word with as much venom as he could.

Harry did not even flinch.  He just glared back and crossed his arms.  “By your reasoning, then, I have just as much a duty to kill him as you do.”

“No!”  That swept the anger right out of Sasuke.  That made the whole world feel like it stopped.  It was almost as bad as any genjutsu his brother could do.  All Sasuke could see was the death and blood Itachi left in his wake and naïve, stubborn, ludicrous Harry joining that image.  He was trembling.  It had been years since anything had made him tremble.  But he did not doubt the stupidity of his cousin.  If Harry got it into his head that he somehow had to get involved in this…Sasuke would have to fight him every step of the way just to keep him from committing assisted suicide by missing-nin.

“I didn’t say I would,” Harry replied as he rolled his eyes.  “I was just trying to make a point.”

“Don’t ever say that again,” Sasuke hissed.  Itachi was not something to joke about.  Ever.  Even the Dobe understood that.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said quickly.  “But you’re missing my point.  Why do you have to be the one to kill him?  Why couldn’t you let someone else?”

“Because he told me – ” Sasuke cut himself off.  Itachi had told him many things that night.  Some things he would never forget.  Some he wished he had.  Those had led him to nearly killing his best friend.

“So you’re going to do what he told you to?” Harry interrupted.  “You’re listening to him?”

“No!”  Sasuke gritted his teeth.  He was not.  This was more than just that.  He may have, in the passed, allowed his brother’s words to lead him into things he should not have, but he was a stronger shinobi for it.  And he had not, in the end, when it mattered most.  Standing over Naruto’s unconscious form, he had made the choice not to followed in his brother’s footsteps.  He was making his own path.  But it still did not change the fact that the only reason Sasuke was still alive was to kill that man.  Nothing would change that.  Ever.  “You don’t understand.”

Harry opened his mouth as if to argue, but shut it just as quickly.  He turned his face aside with a grimace and stared out at the children now gathered around Naruto and Sakura as well as Iruka.  Naruto had managed to disrupt class somehow, and both Sakura and Iruka were giving him hell for it.  “I do understand it,” Harry finally said.  “Sort of.  I mean, I don’t, but my parents were murdered too, you know.  I mean, it’s not the same thing.  I can’t imagine going through the same thing.  But I know what it’s like not to have them.  To know someone took them away from you.  To be taunted with that knowledge.  To want revenge,” he whispered as if the words were too strong to let anyone else hear.  “I just – I can’t imagine killing someone.  I – I don’t know if I could.”  Harry shuddered and leaned more fully against the fence as if that would support him both mentally as well as physically.  His eyes were glazed over as if he truly were picturing what it would be like to take another’s life – and what that would cost him.

Sasuke shook his head.  “That is why you are a civilian,” he said.  Harry twisted his head around to glare at him, but Sasuke cut him off before he could start into another rant.  “It is not an insult.  It just is.  You are a civilian and I am a shinobi.  I was trained for this.  Even before…even before my parents’ death, I was being trained for this possibility.  I can and will kill him because that is what a shinobi does.  Just like they are being trained to maybe one day have to do the same,” he said with a nod towards the distant class.

Harry scowled.  “That isn’t right.”

Sasuke snorted.  “You will find that right and wrong are very subjective in a shinobi village.”

Harry had no witty reply for that, so they stood silently and watched as Naruto and Sakura made their way back to rejoin their little group.  Naruto was still laughing about something, his face scrunched up in a smile while Sakura rolled her eyes.  Harry straightened up before the others reached them, and sent a shy look Sasuke’s way.  “I still don’t know if that’s right or not,” he said slowly.  “But I know I can’t just do nothing.  If – if there’s something I can do to help, I want to.” 

He tried to say it so firmly, as if he was not afraid of what that might mean.  Sasuke stared at him and the way he could not quiet meet Sasuke’s eyes when he said it till the end.  His body language was so open it was almost painful for a shinobi to watch.  Harry really did want to help.  It was clear that Harry was sure of that part of it.  The rest of it, however...  Would he still want to keep his word if faced with the true violence shinobi were capable of?

It was a purely theoretical question in Sasuke’s mind.  Harry would not be getting close enough to an enemy nin to find out.  “Just focus on staying alive,” he replied.  “If I can manage to keep you alive, then I will be doing better than I was.”

Harry did not argue.  Sasuke’s words seemed to surprise him for some reason.  He shot Sasuke a confused scowl, but merely shook his head.  He let it drop and Sasuke was grateful.  Any topic was better than talking about that man, and who was and was not killing him.  It was not Harry’s purpose.  And there was more to it than just needing to be the one to kill Itachi himself.  Harry obviously had strong feelings about killing, in a way similar to Naruto’s own foolish idealism.  It would not be right to let that man ruin that as well.

“You still going to show me how to do that?” Harry asked with a jerk of his head towards Iruka’s class. 

Sasuke nodded.  As they watched Naruto vault over the railing, he started to smirk ever so slightly.  “We can use Naruto for target practice,” he said in a carefully mild tone now that the other boy was back within hearing range.  “He needs help with the basics anyway.”

“Oi!  I do not, teme!” came the expected response.  “And what the hell, man?  I am not a practice dummy!”

“Of course you do,” Sasuke replied.  His cousin was laughing quietly and Sasuke’s taunting grin widened.  “But you are right.  You are not a practice dummy.  You are the real thing.”

“Oi!”

Sasuke turned away with a sly grin and started to lead his cousin home.  After a string of muttered profanities, Naruto jogged to catch up with them.  He made a swiped at Sasuke’s head and Sasuke ducked and twisted to trip him.  Naruto jumped back and the two of them danced back and forth like that almost the whole way home.  Right up until Harry “accidently” got in Naruto’s way and sent the other boy tumbling to the ground with a half-hearted protest about the two of them ganging up on him, and how it wasn’t fair and wouldn’t Sakura-chan save him… 

 

* * *

 

Sasuke bought take-out that night.  Apparently Sakura’s assessment of her teammates cooking abilities was correct since Sasuke’s kitchen was practically empty.  Other than a tin of tea and a box of sealed rations, there wasn’t a thing in there that could be called food.  Sasuke explained that it was that way because he’d just returned from an extended mission.  Looking around at the cupboards, Harry suspected it was always that way.  There were only two pans in the entire kitchen, one of which looked like it never saw use.  Harry wasn’t a great cook, but he had plenty of practice at the basics.  If he could talk Sasuke into buying them some supplies, he could manage meals for the both of them.  It would give him something useful to do.  Sasuke frowned at the idea, but didn’t argue.  Harry took that as a victory. 

Things hadn’t been as tense between the two of them since their walk that afternoon.  Sasuke still frowned all the time and wouldn’t know how to be friendly if his life depended on it, but Harry didn’t feel like the other boy was constantly trying to hide things from him any more.

Beside, it was a little hard to stay made at someone for keeping secrets when you had a few of your own.

Sasuke refused flat out to summon one of his snakes again.  He certainly didn’t seem to like them very much.  Instead he found some old shirts of his for Harry to wear and even showed him his father’s office.  Several part of the house still looked like they’d survived a small war and the office was one of them.  Sasuke moved about the room silently pulling sharp implements out of books and the walls.  He motioned for Harry to follow him in, but left him to his own devices after that.

The translation jutsu was holding up pretty well.  Harry was having less and less trouble following conversations.  Reading, however, remained a problem.  He didn’t even know where to begin.  All of the characters looked the same.  The only different he could tell was that some looked super complicated while others he might have a chance of being able to copy after months of practice.  So there wasn’t much for Harry to see in a room full of books.  But there was still something nice about standing in the center of what had been an important place for a member of his family.  The afternoon light was still bright on this side of the house, and it lent something warm and comfortable to the worn table tops and faded papers.  There was a large depiction of the red and white fan hanging on one of the walls and it seemed to almost glow the fading light.  It also matched the ones on the back of the shirts Sasuke had given him. 

“Why a fan?” Harry asked.  He’d been wondering about it for some time now.  The few examples he’d seen of family crest at Hogwarts had always been much more complicated and full of meaning according to Hermonie.  She’d gone through a phase where she looked up all of the common symbols and was pointing them out to her boys for days.  Most of the symbolism had been fairly straight forward once he’s gotten used to it, but he couldn’t figure out what a fan meant.  At least it was easy to draw.  He couldn’t imagine trying to draw some of those other family crests without the help of magic and wasn’t surprised at all to find out that few of his classmates used their family crests for anything.

Sasuke jumped up lightly to yank a kunai out of the ceiling before turning.  “What?’ he asked before noticing where Harry’s attention had wandered to.  “Oh.  That.  It’s simple.  Our clan was well known for using fire based jutsus.  The fan represents that.”

It took Harry a moment to make the mental leap from fire to flame to fanning the flames, but it made sense once he did.  It was sort of elegant in its simplicity.  None of that abstract stuff to try to understand.  “Do you think you could teach me that?” Harry asked.  If it was something their family was well known for, then he ought to work at it.

But Sasuke scowled.  “I don’t think so,” he said sharply.

Harry sighed and turned away from examining the room.  What did it matter if Sasuke wouldn’t teach him anything?  Sure, he’d agreed to showing him how to use a kunai and they were all set to start that tomorrow, but the second anything remotely challenging came up, Sasuke clammed up tighter than a goblin’s vault.  Harry leaned back against his Uncle’s desk and glared at the far wall.  “And what’s the reason not to this time?” he asked.

Sasuke sent him a frosty look but didn’t rise up to the bait.  “Too dangerous,” he said.  “Besides, it takes years for some to learn even the most basic ones.”

Sasuke’s voice was almost bitter there at the end.  While Harry would have liked to protest that he wasn’t afraid of trying something hard, it just didn’t seem like the time for that.  Maybe after he showed Sasuke that he could work hard at learning how to use a kunai, the other boy might change his mind about showing him how to do one of their fire jutsus.  After all, _Incendio_ was one of the first spells Hogwarts students learned.  A fire jutsu couldn’t be much harder, could it?  And Harry was a fast learner.  He’s always been one.  But beggars shouldn’t be obnoxious.  He was already making a bother out of himself as it was, he didn’t need to add to that by demanding more lessons.  If there was one thing Harry had learned it was to value knowledge when it was offered.  Professor Lupin’s lessons in third year turned out to be some of the most valuable he’d ever had.  And Harry’s failed tutoring with Snape the year before had been the greatest mistake of his life.

Harry had managed to go all day without thinking about Sirius.  He didn’t know whether to feel good about that or not.  It just hurt thinking about him now.  Maybe with a little help from his new cousin, Harry would at least be able to prevent anything like that from ever happening again.  And if Sasuke wouldn’t teach him there was always Naruto to ask.  Harry had a feeling the other boy would help him.

Sasuke had finished gathering everything all of the kunai in the room and spread them out over the desk.  They all looked identical to Harry, but Sasuke started to divide them into two piles based on some sort of criteria.  When he finished, he motioned Harry over.  “You can work with these,” he told him.  “They are _not_ practice kunai and will cut you if you are stupid.”  He pushed a pile of five of them towards Harry.

Harry picked up one and tested the weight experimentally in his hand.  He didn’t have a lot of experience with weapons, but it rested easily in his palm.  The sharp corners by the hilt made him a little nervous, but as he tested wrapping his hand around the handle, it didn’t seem too bad.  He’d have to be really trying in order to slice himself open on those back ends, and even then it would likely only be a minor wound.  Still.  It didn’t offer much protection for his knuckles, but the loop at the back must be good for something.

Harry glanced at the other pile Sasuke had collected, but they didn’t look any different from the one in his hand.  “What’s wrong with those?” he asked.

Sasuke was already in the process of hiding them.  Harry watched as one after another of the kunai was slipped into various pockets all over Sasuke’s person.  Some of them were obvious, like the black pouch attached to his waist.  Others Harry wasn’t even sure where they were, or how the kunai stayed in place.  One second a kunai would be in Sasuke’s hand, his hand would move passed an area on his body, and then the kunai would be gone.

Sasuke’s hands hesitated only for a moment at the question.  “They’re not mine,” he answered before quickly finishing up.  “I’ll need to work on the grounds tomorrow,” he said before Harry had a chance to ask anything else.  “I can get you started on some kunai drills while I’m doing that.”  He paused for a moment then scowled.  “Sakura and Naruto will probably come over too, if you’d rather spend time with them.”

“I can help clean,” Harry offered.  Cleaning and yard work were definitely something he knew about, as pathetic as that kind of was.  He didn’t like the idea of staying here for free without helping out with something.

Sasuke shook his head, but he stopped scowling.  “No.  Focus on your training.  It’s my mess to clean up.”

“Really, I don’t mind,” Harry replied.  “I wanna help.”

“Then do kunai training tomorrow,” Sasuke repeated.  “Don’t think it’ll be easy, either.  It takes years to master the force and timing necessary to reliably hit a target.”

Harry couldn’t argue with that.  He didn’t know the first thing about throwing knives.  It was the kind of exotic thing one only saw in the movies.  For all he knew, it would be even harder than potions.  He didn’t think it could be, but he couldn’t argue that it wouldn’t.  So he sighed and let it go for now.  He needed to learn to pick his battles, sometimes.  He could always find a way to help tomorrow without Sasuke noticing. 

The conversation was apparently over anyway.  Sasuke ushered Harry out of the room.  He paused long enough to stick a written on piece of paper over the crack between the door and the doorframe before announcing it was time for bed.  Harry rolled his eyes, but went along with it.  It had been a long day, with a lot of fighting and walking and very awkward conversations.  A little shut-eye wouldn’t be bad.  Sasuke still insisted on their current sleeping arrangements, however.  Harry tried arguing with him, but Sasuke just crossed his arms and refused to compromise.  Harry was sleeping in the bedroom, Sasuke was sleeping in the foyer.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Sasuke growled out when he apparently had had enough of the conversation.  “I’m accustomed to sleeping in trees and ditches and caves in the cold and the rain and generally inhospitable conditions.  I think I can manage a few nights on a guest futon in the hall.”

“So can I!” Harry objected.  And he could, damnit.  He was just as capable as Sasuke of putting up with a little discomfort.  “Stop treating me like some weak child!”

Sasuke just shook his head.  “Learn to use a kunai, and we’ll talk,” he informed him in an annoyingly smug tone of voice.  Stuck-up, arrogant, assuming arse.  The temptation to hex him, just to show him who was and was not helpless, was very tempting.  Extremely childish and totally illegal, but very tempting.

“Good night,” Sasuke said in a very civil tone of voice that left little room for snapping back at him.  The two of them had been having these little fights over just about anything and everything.  But it was kind of hard to carry on a fight one-sided and Sasuke had already turned to walk away. 

“Good night,” Harry muttered.  With a sigh, he let himself into the room.  The room, Sasuke’s room, was no longer the foreign, intimidating place it had once been.  Harry knew where he was.  He might not want to be there, exactly, but he was alive.  Alive was good.  And had maybe even made some new friends – a rare thing in his life and something he’d learned to value.  And as much as Sasuke annoyed the hell out of him sometimes, the guy wasn’t all bad.  He could be civil and even sort of nice sometimes.  He just was a stubborn idiot the rest of the time.

Harry was as safe as he ever was, and he had a plan for tomorrow.  It wouldn’t be another day of waiting anxiously for any news of the coming war.  He was going to start training.  While a kunai would probably be useless in a wizard’s battle, it was still combat training and he was going to make the best out of it.  He went to bed feeling confident and safe and maybe even a little happy. 

He woke up panting, sweating and crying out into the darkness.

The bed sheets were twisted about him once more, and it took him several panicked seconds to kick them free.  He pulled his legs up to his chest and pushed himself into a tense shaking crouch at the head of the bed.  With the wall pressed firmly into his back and his body curled in as tightly as he could, he felt safe enough to think beyond the pounding of his heart and the flash of half-remembered images.  Just another nightmare.  One of many.  He’d gotten used to them, for the most part.  A year spent tormented by images he didn’t understand and couldn’t stop had built a thick callus between him and his subconscious.  This hadn’t had the twisted, dizzying feel of Legilimency to it, thank god.  Simply just another nightmare.

Harry shuddered and kept his eyes wide open.  He needed to see.  Even in the dark, he needed to know that the room was as he remembered it.  He needed to see that he was still in some strange Asian village, in the beaten and damaged house of his new cousin.  He needed not to see the images of things that had and had not happened three months ago in the bowels of the Ministry.

He was not surprised to find his wand already in hand, though he was extremely grateful it doesn’t appear as if he had accidently done anything with it.  The wood was warm and smooth in his hand and practically vibrating along with him.  It was perhaps the single most comforting thing he had left in the world.

It took him a few moments to realize he had one of the new kunai his cousin gave him in his other hand.  He had dropped the set of them on the nightstand the night before for no other reason than he didn’t know what else to do with them.  Finding a very sharp, very pointy piece of equipment in his hands with no real memory of reaching for it was a little bothersome.  It didn’t bother him in the least how good it felt there.  His cousin was right, though. He was lucky he hadn’t accidentally stabbed himself with it in his panic. 

All of this happened within the space of a few seconds before Sasuke was standing in the doorway.  There were three kunai in his hand as his eyes sweep the room.  “Status?” he whispered in a sharp, tense tone that felt more like a yell.

Harry blinked slowly and tried to figure out what the hell the other boy was talking about.  It was bad enough getting caught having a nightmare by his cousin of all people.  There went any hope of trying to convince the other boy that he wasn’t some pathetic twit.  “Huh?” he asked once he thought his voice could work without cracking on him, or something even more embarrassing.

Sasuke’s eyes snapped over to Harry, and in the weak light of the moon, he could just barely see that there was something not quite normal about them.  The sharingan, he supposed.  “Are you hurt?” Sasuke hissed.

“Huh?”

“Harry!” Sasuke snapped, sounding furious.  He stalked forward two steps before halting suddenly.  The frustration seemed to melt right out of his face, replaced with something drawn and tense.  “You can hear me, can’t you?” he asked in a rush.

For some reason, the room didn’t seem as dark any more.  Harry could only guess that his eyes were adjusting to the poor light.  And the sound of Bellatrix’s laugh was fading along with the echo of Sirius’s voice.  Harry blinked some more before remembering to shove his wand under his pillow.  He was pretty sure sleeping with it under his head was about as bad as shoving it into his back pocket and that Moody would have some choice things to say about that, but right now it was the best place he had for it.  Harry relaxed out of the ridiculous crouch he’d found himself in and slumped down to sit cross legged.  “Yeah, I can hear you,” he whispered back.  “Why wouldn’t I?”

Sasuke scowled.  “You seemed disoriented, as if – nevermind.  Are you hurt?”

Harry flushed so bad he started to sweat again.  Oh gods, talk about humiliating.  “No,” he whispered, feeling like a right prat.  What kind of guy had nightmares at his age?

Sasuke stared at him for what seemed like forever.  Like he knew.  It just made the blushing worse and Harry wished the world would swallow him whole.  He could only pray that Sasuke would not say anything about it, or even worse – ask him to talk.  Because he definitely, completely, and without exception did not want to talk about it.  He didn’t want to think about it.  He just wanted it all to go away.  Talking about it wasn’t going to help.  It was just going to make it even more real.  Not that Sirius being _dead_ wasn’t real enough…

Harry started to shake a little.  How could he be both burning up and shivering at the same time?  And would Sasuke just stop staring at him already?

“Do you need anything?” Sasuke finally asked, his voice still little more than a rough whisper in the dark.

Harry shook his head frantically then remembered to talk.  “No,” he said firmly.

            He could just barely see Sasuke nod.  He didn’t say anything else.  He simply turned and left.  As if he’d never been there.  As if he’d seen nothing.  Harry slumped down on the bed and yanked the covers over his head.  He was still blushing like mad and couldn’t wait this time for sleep to return.  He was confident he was too embarrassed to be at any risk of a nightmare.

            Surprisingly, it didn’t take him long to drift back to sleep.  He must not have fallen too deeply asleep, however, because the wind woke him up what felt like not a minute later.  Harry’s eyes opened and he stared at the inside of his sheet.  One flailing hand found his wand once more.

            He swore silently that if that was Kakashi again coming back to mess with his head some more he was seriously going to – to – to do something to that man, and it was not going to be pleasant!

            Except it didn’t feel right.  Someone wasn’t coming down the hall.  Someone was already in the room with him.  He moved before he had time to tense up in fear.  He just flung himself to the right, blindly.  The sheet pulled at him, something thunked! with a silently but heavy vibration into the bed beside him.  The sheet ripped and spilt him out unto the floor.

            He had maybe three seconds to act.  His shoulder collided with the floor.  His eyes snapped up to the figure looming over his bed.  There was the sound of something exploding somewhere behind him, in another part of the house.  He got a good look at a man in black, with a mask and slit purple eyes, at the flash of silver in his hands before Harry snapped off a solid _Expelliarmus_ that slammed the other man into the far wall.

            There was another crackling explosion, this time closer to him.  Something slammed into the wall behind him, followed by a quick series of thunks.  But there was still inches of solid wood and plaster between him and whatever was happening out there.  Leaving him and the man in black.

            Who wasn’t where he should be.

Harry had expected to find him slumped over by the wall, but the room once more appeared empty.  Harry didn’t trust that for a second.  He got a wall to his back, his wand held out in front of him and his eyes wide open.  The man was here.  Harry just had to find him.  Disable him.  Then get the hell out of there and find his cousin.

There was a shimmer of light, no brighter than the glitter of the snitch’s wings, and Harry threw himself to the left.  Thunk!Thunk!Thunk!  Harry tried to roll with his momentum, coming up awkwardly in a crouch by the bed once more. He nearly toppled over into it, but his wand was still out and ready for the faint shift in the shadows by the door.

“ _Calamus_!” Harry hissed before it had a chance to move.  The spell shot out of his wand in a flash-bang of light that splintered into a barrage of attacks.  In the dark, his aim wasn’t as good as he’d like, but that was the beauty of this particular spell.  You just had to point it in the right direction.  The shower of blasts would cover the entire area, and with only a little bit of luck, seriously slow down your opponent.  It wasn’t as powerful as a well placed _Reducto_ or as effective as _Petrificus Totalus_ , but it more than made up for it in flexibility in a duel.

Something grunted before falling heavily to slide across the hard wood floor.  Harry scrambled to his feet.  He’d managed to hit the man, causing some nasty looking burns on his leg and shoulder.  He didn’t have time to examine him any further.  Bruised and burned did not mean out of the fight.  The man threw something at him and Harry just barely managed to jerk his head to the side fast enough.  It still sliced open his cheek with an edge so sharp he barely felt it at first, until half his face felt like it was flayed and on fire.  God, he hoped it wasn’t that bad.  He didn’t have time to slap one hand up to check the damage.  He was already moving sideways, trying to dodge before even knowing for sure that anything was coming.

“ _Petrificus Totalus!_ ” 

The man froze, a handful of star shaped disks already in one hand. Every edge was beveled down to a shining blade, the points needle thin and curved wickedly.  It was the kind of thing meant to slice through just about anything, and to stay imbedded in everything else.  It was designed to rip through muscle and tear out tendons.  Harry stared at it in the dim light, transfixed.

There was a crash from beyond his room, followed by a muffled shout that disappeared into a gargled silence.  Harry finally moved.  He scrambled over the still body until he found one of his kunai.  They’d been knocked off the table in all the confusion, and he had to dig under the torn sheet to find one.  It was a comfortable heavy weight in his hand.  The sudden silence of the house was almost more disturbing.  He didn’t have a lot of time.

The man in black was staring up at him, frozen but aware.  His eyes really were slit like a cat’s.  Harry squeezed his eyes shut and looked away as he brought the base of the kunai’s handle down on the man’s skull.  He didn’t know how much force it took to knock someone unconscious.  Conversely, he didn’t know how much it took to kill a man either.  He could only hope he’d manage something in the middle.  There wasn’t time to check. 

With a muttered _Finite Incantatem_ he canceled out his spell just as Sasuke came bursting into the room.  Literally.  The door was shattered all over the place.  Sasuke didn’t even pause.  His forward momentum had him sliding across the floor, but he simply lunged and had himself flying at Harry.  It should have been a lot hard than he made it look.  He skidded to a halt beside Harry, half crouched, hands out and armed.  His eyes flickered between Harry and the singed and unconscious man.  “Status?” he barked out again even as he twisted to put Harry between him and the wall with his body facing outward, ready. 

Harry snorted.  He couldn’t help it.  Of all the ridiculous things.  “I’m fine,” he drawled.  Sure, there had been a few moments there where he might not have been as fine as he would have liked, but everything was fine now.

Sasuke ignored his sarcasm.  He nodded, sharply, then went back to searching the room as if he expected something to come jumping out of the woodwork.  A minute passed.  Then another.  Sasuke stayed frozen where he was except for his eyes sweeping from one side of the room to another.  He didn’t say anything and they heard nothing.  Another minute.  Sasuke turned before Harry did and there was a man crouched down just inside the far window.

Harry couldn’t see much from his position huddled behind Sasuke, but he saw enough.  White mask.  Black robe.  He screamed without thinking.  Not again.  It could not happen again.  Sasuke jumped and twisted around, his mouth open, his eyes wide.  He wasn’t paying attention to the true threat, however.  Harry couldn’t fire off anything from behind Sasuke and he doubted he’d be faster than one of His men.  So he did the only thing he could.  He grabbed two handfuls of Sasuke’s shirt and yanked him sideways.  They needed to get down.  Stay low.  Get out of the room.  You couldn’t block an Unforgivable.

But you certainly could make it so that it couldn’t be cast, and maybe in the process provide some cover.  He and Sasuke crashed to the ground, the bed now between them, and the figure in the window.  Harry kept one hand firmly wrapped up in his cousin’s shirt and drew his wand again with the other.  He’d only get one shot at this.  Pushing himself up, he yanked Sasuke along with him.  The door was wide open, somewhere to their right and behind them.  He twisted to shove Sasuke in that direction and brought his wand up.

The Death Eater was gone.  Harry’s heart leapt even faster than he ever thought possible.  Where?  Where?  Where?

“Harry, wait!” Sasuke yelped. 

Harry ignored him.  His shove should have sent Sasuke stumbling to the door.  Hopefully he’d have enough sense to find cover after that.  Splitting them up was the most important thing, however.  If Death Eaters were here, it was a sure thing they weren’t after Sasuke.  Harry would just have to make a big enough nuisance out of himself to keep them occupied.

There!  A flicker of movement just outside the window.  Someone was on the lawn.  It wasn’t a clear shot, but it would do.  Harry twisted his wand around, opened his mouth for the strongest blasting spell he knew and felt arms wrap around him like a living vise. 

“Harry!”

He struggled for one moment before realizing it that was Sasuke’s voice right next to his ear, Sasuke’s arms wrapped around him, pinning his arms down, making his wand all but useless that far down.  Why?  What was he _doing_? 

And then they were tumbling backwards.  Sasuke kept his grip on Harry the whole way down.  They landed in a jumble of elbows and knees, Sasuke pinned beneath him but still not letting go. 

“Stop it!  It’s okay!  Stand down!” Sasuke roared into his ear.

He couldn’t stop!  It wasn’t okay!  Sasuke didn’t understand!  Oh god.  All the speed in the world wouldn’t be enough if he was hit with an unforgivable.  Sasuke wouldn’t know the first thing about how to fight a wizard.  A Death Eater could kill him before he even realized he was in danger.  And why wouldn’t he let go?  The last thing Harry wanted to do was to have to hex his own cousin, but if he didn’t let Harry defend them, they were both going to be dead.  Harry gave up trying to jerk free.  Sasuke was as strong as he looked and Harry simply wasn’t a match for him.  So he twisted his wand to the side and back.  It wasn’t a great angle, but it would be enough.  A wizard would know better than to leave him such an opening.

“He’s one of us!” Sasuke shouted.  “I know him!  It’s safe!”

That didn’t make any sense and that was the only reason his cousin wasn’t locked under a binding spell.  Sasuke _knew_ him?  How the bloody hell would Sasuke know a wizard, much less a Death Eater?

Sasuke didn’t try to move out from underneath Harry.  He stayed put and merely held on to Harry.  He was panting, just slightly and kept repeating the same things.  “It’s okay.  He’s ANBU.  He’s a Konoha shinobi. He’s not going to hurt you.  It’s alright.  No one’s going to hurt you.  You’re safe.  We’re safe.  I know him.  It’s okay.”

Harry shook his head.  “Death Eater,” he gasped out.

Sasuke paused.  “No,” he replied.  “He’s ANBU.  I don’t know what a Death Eater is, but he’s ANBU.  They’re guards on the village.  He heard the fight and came to help us.”

And just like that, Harry realized he’d apparently made a huge mistake.  A colossal sized one.  A right bloody mess of one that was so going to land his arse in the frying pan.  He didn’t know what to freak out about first.  The fact that they’d been attacked by someone, the fact that he’d just drawn his wand in front of his cousin that knew nothing about magic or that the Ministry was going to have his hide for this one.  That or the fact that he was still essentially being held in his cousin’s lap. 

Harry blushed.  “You can let go now!” he all but squeaked.  Which didn’t relieve his humiliation any.  Thankfully, Sasuke did let go then.  Harry scrambled up and away, trying not to step on anything in the process.  He wasn’t helped by the fact that the body of the man in black was still sprawled out on the floor.  Harry waited until he was a good respectable distance away before turning back around.

Sasuke was still lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.  He was wearing a set of loose trousers and shirt dark enough to be black.  There was blood splatter on his arms, and one of his sleeves looked a little singed, but other than that he seemed perfectly fine.  Whole and uncursed. 

Slowly, he sat up.  He was missing the head band he always wore, and his hair flopped haphazardly in front of his eyes.  They too were black again, and Harry was relieved.  He didn’t think he could handle the slightly creepier side of his cousin at this moment.

“You disabled that enemy nin,” Sasuke finally said as he gestured towards the unconscious man.

Harry wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question, but he hesitantly nodded anyway.  He had.  He wasn’t going to lie about that.

“You were going to attack that ANBU guard.”

Harry nodded again.  The ANBU thing confused him, but they were obviously talking about the same man.  The one who was still suspiciously absent.  Harry glanced around the room once more, trying to find any sign of him.  He’d rather know exactly where he was, even if Sasuke insisted it was alright.

“You thought he was someone else.”

Crap.  Harry winced and slowly let his eyes drift back over to Sasuke.  Sasuke hadn’t stopped staring at him the entire time.  He wasn’t frowning.  Which was a little unusual.  But his eyes were narrowed dangerously.  Dangerously in the way that Harry suspected he wasn’t going to be able to get away with keeping any more secrets.  The Ministry was so going to throw him out of school for this.

“You thought he was someone you knew would try to kill you.  Someone who wasn’t Itachi.  Someone other than Itachi.  Someone you didn’t tell me anything about!”  Sasuke was shouting by the end.  Now he was scowling.

In a way, Harry was grateful.  If Sasuke had been afraid or worried, Harry would have felt like a right cad for all the hiding and lying.  If Sasuke was going to get angry and yell then Harry had no problem yelling right back.  “It’s none of your business!” he snapped.  Hah!  Now it was his turn not to know what’s going on.  He couldn’t wait to see how Sasuke liked that!

Sasuke’s face twisted into something nasty.  “I think I have the right to know if an assassin might come barreling through my window!” he snarled back.

“What shite!  You don’t tell me anything, why should I tell you?  Besides,” he sneered.  “You just said he wasn’t a Death Eater.  So I guess it’s still none of your business, now is it?”

“And what if it had been?”

“Then I guess you should have left me at Privet Drive!”

“With only a bat-faced, spineless woman to protect you?  Not a chance, you stupid twit!”

“I can take care of myself, you conceited asshole!”

“Obviously not well enough!”

“Like hell!  I didn’t see _you_ in here taking care of this jerk!”  Harry kicked out at the body at his feet, forgetting for a moment that the man was not dead and would probably be really sore for that in the morning.

Sasuke flinched.  It didn’t last long, however, before his face was turning red and he took one step forward.

“Ah, gentlemen?”

They both jerked around to face the direction of the voice.  Sasuke had a kunai out from somewhere and Harry had his wand. 

It was the man from before, the one who looked like a Death Eater.  With the moonlight shining in his face and not highlighting him from behind, the differences were more obvious.  Harry had never seen a Death Eater’s mask that looks so….cute.  It was animal shaped.  Like something a child would have.  And it wasn’t pure white.  There were streaks of red on the sides.  The man had also lowered his hood and tilted the mask to the side until Harry could see a tuff of black hair and one dark eye peeking out from behind.  It was impossible to tell with the mask still partially on and in the dark, but he could have sworn the man was grinning at them.

“I hate to interrupt, but I need to report this disturbance,” the man continued cheerfully.  “I’ve already examined the first two bodies.  I need to have a look at that one,” he said before nodding at the man at Harry’s feet.

Harry scrambled backwards, the fight all but forgotten.  There had been two more?  Well, that certainly explained the explosions from earlier.  He glanced over at his cousin as they stood stiffly to the side.  The other boy didn’t seem hurt in anyway.

The man in the door seemed to float over to the body, not walk.  He bent down and poked at it.  “Hmm,” he announced before riffling through a couple of pockets.  “Hmmm.  Interesting burn pattern.  You’re work, I assume, Uchiha-san?’

Sasuke’s head snapped around to stare at Harry.  Crap.  Harry grimaced.  He’d forgotten about that.  Sasuke must not have taken a good look earlier.

The stranger didn’t miss their silent exchange.  “Oh?” he hummed.  “Well, then.  Thank you for not trying the same thing with me.  Though seeing if it would have worked might have been fun…”

“He’s a civilian!” Sasuke snapped.  He’d already shifted to stand more in front of Harry than along side.

The man laughed and waved one hand lazily.  “Sure, sure, whatever you say, Uchiha-san.”  And then, as if by magic, all of the joking stopped.  The man stood up, the mask and hood once more in place and nodded gravely.  In a move so smooth Harry barely noticed, the man had the body up on one shoulder.  “I will report this to the Hokage.  Expect a summons within 24 hours.  Uchiha-san, Firecracker-san.”  The man leaped and cleared not only the bed but landed clear outside the window.  Another leap and he was gone.

Harry stared after him.  That was their guards?  That man was insane.  And creepy.  Harry would be more than continent to never see him again.  He didn’t exactly have the charismatic nature of an Auror.  “What did he call me?” he asked.

Sasuke scowled.  “Nothing,” he muttered before glancing over at Harry.  He stared at him for a moment before sighing.  “Come on.  We’re not staying here.”  He moved away and bent down to start picking up some of the fallen kunai.

“Where are we going?” Harry asked.

“Naruto’s,” Sasuke answered.  “He can help keep watch for any more trouble.  Don’t think we aren’t discussing this,” Sasuke added with a glare.  “And you’re telling me everything.”

Harry sighed.  He owed his cousin at least some kind of explanation.  But everything was an awful lot to ask for.


	11. Making Connections - Day 3 Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live! Try not to die of shock. I’ve written some new chapters for this story – and actually finished part 2 of 3! It only took me about 200 pages. Omg this thing is huge. I’m working on part 3, which also looks to be big.
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the reviews, kudos and favorites! You all got my butt back in gear and writing again.
> 
> Very Important! Once again:  
> I started writing this without having seen the Shippuden episodes of Naruto. I've now seen only the first few, but I'd already written the beginning of this and am not going to go back and change things. There shouldn't be any spoliers from that point. Lots of things are not consistent with Shippuden, however some minor things may find their way in.

Day 3

 

Naruto was dreaming of neon colored frogs that could dance.  There was a whole group of them, parading up and down the counter singing and dancing.  Except everyone was watching them and Naruto couldn’t get old man Ichiraku’s attention long enough to order a new bowl of ramen.  He sat at the counter, holding his old empty bowl and every time he’d start to call out his order, the dancing frogs would do something really interesting to distract everyone.  He was about ready to cry in frustration.

And then the bastard went and started banging on his door.

Naruto’s eyes snapped open just as he rolled off the bed and came crashing down on the floor.  “Ow,” he groaned from his pathetic pile of blankets and bruised elbows.

Sasuke just banged on the door some more.  Bastard.  Naruto poked his head out and glared at the door.  Oh, he knew it was Sasuke on the other side.  He’d recognize the other boy’s chakra residue from halfway around the world.  _Why_ Sasuke insisted on tormenting him in the middle of the night was a much better question.

“Dobe!  Get off your ass, and open the damn door!”

“Teme,” Naruto growled before propelling himself to the door.  He flung it open ready to snarl a really brilliant comeback.  Except Harry was standing there too, looking a little dazed and with a fresh, shallow cut along the side of his face.

“Holy crap, what the hell happened?” Naruto yelped.

Sasuke didn’t grace him with an answer.  He pushed his way through and dragged Harry along behind him.  Harry managed a weak smile as he passed.  The blood all over his face kind of ruined it, though.  Someone had tried to clean it up, but mostly they just smeared it around by the looks of it.  And the wound was still slowly oozing more blood.  It wasn’t deep, thank god.  It was the kind of thing Naruto’s body could heal quickly, or that Sakura-chan could fix easily, but it still looked terrible on Harry.  With his hair even wilder than usual and a pallor to his skin, the streaks of red made something in Naruto’s chest feel tight and painful.  He was used to blood.  It really shouldn’t bother him any more.  Except sometimes it did, and it made Naruto want to tear something apart.

“Do you still have an extra futon?” Sasuke demanded.  He’d made himself at home, dropping his travel bag next to Naruto’s empty one.

“Yeah,” Naruto answered, thrown off guard by the unexpected question.  He had to think for a moment to remember where he’d shoved it all those months ago.  “You didn’t take it when you moved out.”

“Sasuke used to live here?” Harry asked.

“Temporarily,” Sasuke replied before Naruto could say anything.  Not that Naruto would have said anything bad, since Sasuke had already made it clear that anything even hinting at Orochimaru was off limits.  Sasuke’s probation being a part of that, it wasn’t something to tell Harry about.  Naruto could have spun some great story about how he generously opened his home to his friend in need when giant cockroaches invaded the Uchiha district…  Or Sasuke could just do what he always did when he didn’t want to talk about something – be a bastard.

Sasuke pulled out his field medical kit and ordered Harry to sit.

“I’m fine,” Harry protested.

“You’re bleeding,” Sasuke countered.

“I can do it myself.”

“How?  You can’t see what you’re doing.”

“I can manage - ”

“Oi!” Naruto interrupted.  He was still standing by the door and still waiting for an explanation.  As entertaining as it was to watch Sasuke’s cousin annoy the heck out of the teme, Naruto deserved a damn good explanation for missing out on his beauty sleep.  “What the hell?” he demanded.  “You don’t just show up all bloody on someone’s doorstep and not explain something.”

Sasuke scowled back and pressed his lips together tightly, the bastard.  He also did that thing where his eyes slowly drifted to the side the way they always did when he’d done something he kind of regretted but sure as hell wasn’t admitting that he did.

“Someone broke into the house,” Harry helpfully supplied.

Naruto started to grin, pleased that someone was willing to answer his questions, when the meaning behind those words sunk in.  “Huh?” he shouted.  Oh, sweet merciful ramen, if Itachi was already making his move…except Naruto seriously doubted that they’d have managed to get away from Itachi so easily.  And Sasuke would _not_ be this calm.  His brain seemed to short-circuit whenever Itachi was around, as if Sasuke and common sense couldn’t be in the same room.

“ANBU is currently escorting the only survivor to headquarters,” Sasuke explained stiffly.

Naruto raised his eyebrows.  “You left one alive?” he asked.  How very unlike Sasuke.

The teme’s eyes darted towards Harry and Naruto got the message.  Some things were better left unsaid in front of the civilians.  Naruto usually didn’t abide by such things – he didn’t like secrets – but there was no reason to go rubbing the nastier side of shinobi life in some people’s faces.  “The man was already incapacitated,” Sasuke added as he glared darkly at his cousin.  What a minute…

Naruto blinked and turned to stare at Harry.  “You did it?” he asked.  Harry blushed and Naruto grinned.  “Way to go, Harry!  Your first KO.  Not bad.”  Sasuke growled.  Apparently he wasn’t as impressed.  “What?” Naruto asked.

“He still hasn’t explained _how_ he did it.”

“Oohh,” Naruto grinned brightly before flopping down to sit on the floor only feet away from Harry.  “Alright!  Let’s hear it, Harry-kun!  This has got be a great.  Did you kick ass?  Hah!  I bet you showed them.”

“Dobe!” Sasuke snapped.  He glared down at Naruto, a forgotten pad of bandaging clenched in one hand.  For someone who had woken him up at an ungodly hour, Sasuke sure was irritable.  “They were chunin level, at least, if not jounin.  Don’t you find that a bit odd?”

Naruto frowned.  “But we fight jounins all the time.”

Sasuke snarled and jerked his arm as if he’d like to hit something.  The fact that he didn’t was almost more disturbing than if he had.  Sasuke and Naruto were constantly hitting each other, and throwing things, and generally being kind of rough on the surrounding environment.  Except when Sasuke was really mad.  Ever since he came back from Orochimaru’s, Sasuke had this tendency not to touch anything when he was really frustrated.  Like if he did give in the impulse to hit something, it wouldn’t end there.  Sakura was like that now too.  She had to be real careful when she got mad not to damage things beyond repair.  It was a kind of impulse control that Naruto doubted he’d ever be capable of.

“We,” Sasuke announced, “are shinobi.  We are highly trained shinobi.  If it wasn’t for the damn council, we would be jounin.  Harry can’t even throw a kunai.  Now, Dobe, what here seems a little un-fucking-believable?”

Naruto grimaced.  How the hell did Sasuke do that?  Naruto cursed all the time, but he never made it sound so cool.  Sasuke was down right creepy when he got like this.  Naruto glanced over at Harry, wondering how the other boy was taking it.  But Harry was busy crossing his arms and glaring at Sasuke.

“You don’t have to be able to throw a kunai to use one, you know,” he informed him smugly.

Naruto thought about that for a moment, then nodded sagely.  “Hmm, hmm.”

Sasuke just shot his cousin a sharp look.  “And how exactly did he get those burns?”

Naruto’s eyes widened and shot back over to Harry.  “You burned him?” he asked.  He didn’t know if that was really cool or kind of troublesome.

“Only a little!” Harry protested.  “And the guy was going to kill me!”

Naruto laughed and waved his hands.  “Then I’m glad you kicked his ass,” he reassured him.

“He isn’t,” Harry replied, jerking his head towards Sasuke.

Sasuke managed to scowl even more and with a jerky motion went back to his med-kit.  He turned back with a bottle of disinfectant and set to work silently.  Harry squirmed a little at first, but another glare had him sitting still while Sasuke dabbed at the wound.  They were lucky; it wasn’t deep and wouldn’t need stitches.  With the right ointment, it shouldn’t even scar, which was great.  Harry was always trying to cover up the scar on his forehead, so he probably wouldn’t like another one on his cheek.

The silence and the simplicity of the task in front of him helped Sasuke calm down.  “That isn’t what I’m mad about and you know it,” he finally rumbled out as he taping down the piece of gauze.  Naruto grinned and nodded, even though he still had _no_ idea what the teme was talking about.

Harry pulled away and Sasuke let him for now.  They stayed silent, Sasuke staring at Harry and Harry staring at the floor.  Naruto stared at both of them.  Okaaay…  “Um, why exactly aren’t we all happy?” he asked with a frown.  “I mean, Harry’s alive.  Everything’s alright.  Why aren’t we all happy?”

Harry blushed and ducked his head down to stare at the floor even more intently.  He might as well wave a sign identifying him as the guilty party.  Naruto watched him in surprise.  He wouldn’t have guessed that Harry was the one to blame for this little tiff.  After all, Sasuke excelled at annoying the mess out of people.  Naruto fold his arms over his chest the way he’d seen Iruka-sensei do countless times and leveled his best disappointed look.  It was hard to do without snickering.  “Alright!” he announced loudly.  “What’d you do this time?”

Harry glanced up at him and gaped a little.  Apparently The Look didn’t work as well coming from Naruto as it did from Iruka-sensei.  Sasuke even snorted.  While it didn’t have the intended affect, things did seem to improve a little after that.  Sasuke unbended enough to stopped hovering.  With a frustrated sigh, he tossed his med kit back into his bag before dropping down to sit beside them.  He stretched his legs out in a graceful mimic of being relaxed, but Naruto could see the stiffness in his shoulders, the narrowing of his eyes, the unnatural stillness that gave him away as anything but completely calm.  He was still high-strung from the attack.  It was old reflexes and years of training.  Turning that part of you off was never as easy or as quick as turning it on.

Harry seemed to relax now that everyone was sitting.  He shifted in his seat, slowly slumping into a slouched position.  He reached up one hand to rub gently at his shoulder, but didn’t give any other sign that it pained him.  The movement didn’t go unnoticed by either of the shinobi, but there wasn’t any need to draw attention to it.  It wasn’t long before Harry was glancing shyly at both of them.  Now that Sasuke wasn’t trying to loom over him, Harry looked a lot more guilty than angry.  He kept glancing around the room as if he was looking for a way out, or for some brilliant inspiration on how to lie.  Naruto smirked.  It was real hard to lie about something when you felt guilty about it.  An angry person will say all kinds of stuff, but guilty was just way too easy to spot.  It was now merely a waiting game to see how long before the other teen cracked.  When Harry’s eyes darted away again, Naruto leveled an exaggerated wink in Sasuke direction.  Sasuke shook his head and ignored him.

 “Can’t we just pretend it never happened?” Harry asked weakly.

Sasuke didn’t reply, merely continued staring at his cousin.  Harry blushed slowly and turned back to staring at the floor.  This wasn’t going to get them anywhere.  So Naruto shrugged and smiled.  “Come on, it can’t be that bad,” Naruto replied.  “I mean, we’re pretty open minded people really.  I doubt you’ve got any secrets bigger than Sasuke’s and mine.” 

Harry perked up right away at that.  Crap, he probably shouldn’t have said that.  Sasuke shot a nasty glare at him and Naruto laughed feebly. 

“Secrets?” Harry asked.  “What kinds of secrets?  I thought you weren’t going to keep any more secrets from me,” he said with a sharp look over at Sasuke.

It was, perhaps, not the brightest move on Harry’s part either.  Sasuke turned his glare full power towards his cousin.  Naruto couldn’t understand why Sasuke was so angry at Harry, but it had to be important.  He was sneering before he even opened his mouth.  “Obviously, we’re both liars then,” he said.

Harry flinched.  “I didn’t lie.”

“You just failed to tell the truth.”

“You never asked!”

“And it didn’t occur to you that I might need to know?”

“It’s none of your business!”

Sasuke slammed his palm down on the table.  “You’re my business!  Keeping you alive is my business!  Stopping Itachi is my business!  Making damn sure there’s nothing else that’s going to prevent you from living a full, boring life is my business!”

“Sasuke…” Naruto jerked his head back and forth watching the two of them go at it.  This was seriously beginning to get uncomfortable.  This was his apartment, damnit.  He ought to make a rule, no fighting between friends while there.  What had happened to the calm of only seconds before?  Now they were yelling at each other again.  They were always yelling at each other.  “Cut it out guys!” Naruto scolded. 

Nobody was listening to him, however.  Harry had his hands balled into fists and glared back at Sasuke.  “I can take care of myself!” he yelled.

Sasuke moved.  He was on his feet and lunging across the table before Naruto could do much more than yelp.  Harry barely had enough warning to scoot his chair back before Sasuke was on him, one hand clasping around the other teen’s neck before slamming him into the wall.  Naruto’s poor kitchen chair clattered across the floor, one leg snapping off as it went crashing into the wall.

“Teme!” Naruto shouted as he scrambled to his feet.  What the hell?  Sasuke wouldn’t hurt Harry.  He just wouldn’t!  Naruto didn’t know what the hell he thought he was doing, however.  He didn’t care how on edge Sasuke was.  This was not the way to make Harry feel safe and welcomed.   The teme and his damn temper…

As usual, Sasuke paid no heed to the voice of reason.  He tightened his grip, lifting Harry ever so slightly until Harry had to struggle to keep his feet under him.  One hand clawed uselessly at Sasuke’s grip, but Naruto could still see over Sasuke’s shoulders Harry’s wide eyes and crooked glasses.  It was enough to know that Sasuke hadn’t really hurt him.  Of course he wouldn’t.  His shoulders might be tight with tension, running like a taunt string down his back, held tightly in place, but he didn’t follow through.  He stopped and snarled, furious, frustrated and clearly out of patience.  Not that the teme ever had much to begin with.  Naruto really shouldn’t be surprised.  Sasuke didn’t put up with anyone.  The fact that he’d managed this long was probably a small miracle, but it was Naruto’s job to stop him from doing anything stupid, and this definitely counted. 

“Teme, calm the fuck down!” Naruto hissed.  He didn’t reach out to touch Sasuke, however.  He knew better.  He could only hover close behind.  If he grabbed Sasuke, if he took it to that level right here and right now, things were only going to get messier.  The two of them would get into a fight.  His apartment would get trashed.  And they would be lucky if Harry didn’t get hurt severely in the ensuing chaos.  Shit, as it was, Harry was going to be so freaked out after this. 

Sasuke ignored him.  Again.  “When are you going to get this through your thick skull, twit.  You are nowhere near - ”Sasuke sneered before he suddenly froze.  And then, very slowly, he tilted his head to the left. 

“Let go,” Harry hissed.

Naruto glanced back and forth between the two of them.  What the heck?  Naruto had never seen Sasuke back down that quickly before.  Naruto shifted closer nervously.  He could just barely see the thin piece of wood Harry had pressed against Sasuke’s throat.  It didn’t _look_ sharp, but Harry held it like he expected to be able to do fatal harm with it.  And Sasuke reacted instinctively.  They stood, frozen like that, as Harry wheezed through the tight hold on his neck and Sasuke strained his neck muscles keeping his chin tilted back as far as it would go.

            “Harry?” Naruto asked hesitantly.  For some reason, calming _Harry_ down now seemed the more pressing concern.  Maybe it was something about how unafraid he seemed to be even in the face of Sasuke’s temper.  “Um – what?”

            Harry’s eyes didn’t move away from Sasuke. “Let go,” he repeated. 

            Sasuke’s grip loosened just enough that he wasn’t putting pressure on his cousin’s neck.  But he didn’t let go.  “And if I don’t?” he asked evenly.

            Harry’s eyes narrowed.  “Then I’ll show you just how well I can take care of myself.”

 

            It was hard to breath – and that wasn’t just because of the choke hold his cousin had on him.  Though that certainly didn’t help matters any.  Harry’s feet barely touched the ground, and the soft soles of his tennis shoes kept slipping out from under him.  Without them, all of his weight was hanging off that tight, cool grip around his throat.  Sasuke wasn’t much taller than Harry, but his hand sure felt big enough to wrap around his neck twice. 

But that wasn’t the only thing making it hard to breath.  The sight of his wand tip digging into the pale skin of his cousin’s neck was almost as difficult.  The knowledge that – if it came to the point where he would have to hex his cousin, he had better use something powerful, something debilitating, something final – only made it worse.  It was a line, that once it was crossed, there would be no coming back.  This wouldn’t be the vague threats and accidents that sometimes happened at Privet Drive.  This would be much more violent.  What kind of monster would he have to be to attack his own family? But he would, if he had to.  Heaven help him, but he would.

Harry pushed his wand up ever so slightly, increasing the pressure on Sasuke’s neck.  “Let go,” he repeated hoarsely.  He had quite a few other things he would have liked to add to that, but it was kind of hard to say much more when his throat felt like it was being crushed and his chest felt three sizes too small.

Sasuke had his head tilted back as far as it would go, the skin and muscles in his neck stretched out taunt and vulnerable beneath Harry’s wand.  But his eyes were red and narrowed.  His breathing stayed slow and steady.

“Hey, hey, now everybody!” Naruto yelped from behind Sasuke.  “Let’s just calm down!” 

They both ignored him.  “Let.  Go.” Harry repeated.

Sasuke’s fingers tightened ever so slightly.  “No.”

Harry tried to curse but choked and gasped as his air supply disappeared momentarily.  Apparently, trying to yell back was a bad idea.  “I’ll make you,” he finally gasped out, still hoping a warning would be enough, while at the same time promising to absolutely follow through if it wasn’t.

“Damn it, Sasuke!” Naruto yelled.  “You’re hurting him!”

Sasuke gave no indication that he heard him.  Or that he heard Harry.  “You aren’t shinobi,” he said slowly.

Harry glared back at him.  “No.”

“Then what are you?” Sasuke demanded.

Harry flinched.  This wasn’t fair.  This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go.  Sasuke had seemed so concerned about Harry’s safety before.  What did it matter _how_ Harry defended himself?  Damn it all.  For once, Harry just wanted to pretend he was normal.  He did not want to have to explain to his new cousin and new friends how much of a freak he was.  Would they be so relaxed and friendly with him when they found out he was far from helpless?  Harry grimaced.  If Sasuke’s initial reaction was anything to go by, he’d be lucky if they didn’t hate him as much as the Dursleys had.  Or worse.

Harry tried pushing himself up to relieve some of the pressure on his neck.  “I’m – just – Harry,” he struggled to say.

“That’s not an answer!”

“Sasuke!  You’re choking him!  Stop it!”

“He can talk,” Sasuke snapped back.  He leaned forward then, pushing his neck down onto Harry’s wand, seemingly heedless of the pain it must have caused or the bruising damage that was sure to result.  “And he’s going to,” he growled.  “I am not risking the completion of this mission because you can’t understand the meaning of need-to-know.  I am lead on this and I am ordering you to tell me!  How did you defend yourself, who did you think the ANBU was, what the hell you think you’re threatening me with now – and every other damn thing you’ve been hiding from us so far!”

Harry shook his head.  He wasn’t a mission, he was a person!  And he wasn’t _trying_ to make things difficult for Sasuke.  But what else could he do?  “I can’t!” he exclaimed.  Even if he wanted to, he just couldn’t. 

Shinobi weren’t wizards.  That much was clear from their little demonstration earlier.  While Harry would hardly consider himself an expert when it came to wizarding culture, he’d never even heard of shinobi before, and as far as he could tell, they hadn’t ever heard of wizards before either.  For all he knew, there was a reason the two were separate.  Plenty of people hated wizards and witches enough to kill them on sight.  What if it was like that here?  And the wizarding world had never shown itself to be particularly welcoming to those who were different.  They’d take one look at Sasuke’s eyes and try to have him locked up.  The differences between Harry’s world and this one might seem superficial to him in a lot of ways, but he suspected the Ministry would have a few things to say about it.  And after all the trouble he got into last summer…  He doubted the ministry would be at all understanding this time around.  He could already hear Umbridge’s fake little titter as she gleefully condemned him for breaking the international wizarding law of secrecy…

What if they kicked him out of school for real this time?  He couldn’t risk that.  He had too much to do, too much to learn.  There was no way he could defeat Voldemort on his own.  Hell, he probably wouldn’t even survive without having the safety of Hogwarts to return to.  Especially if his cousin hated him now.  And there was no way he could go back to Privet Drive.  Hogwarts was all he had left.  It was all he ever had. 

Harry closed his eyes and made the only choice he could. 

He said nothing.

 

The feel of muscle and skin beneath Sasuke’s fingers was as familiar as the ground beneath his feet.  The frantic racing pulse against his finger tips rushed in double time to his own.  The delicate feeling of a crushing windpipe… Sasuke had plenty of experience at such things.  Strangulation was, after all, an effective method of control both in and out of battle, and one he had used countless time to subdue an opponent.  It compelled more than just defeat, but total surrender.  Any idiot could land a lucky kill.  Forcing an opponent to give you the information you needed without leaving a mark on the body however - that was what a shinobi did.

Sasuke leaned forward even more and glared down at his current “opponent.”  Harry’s impossibly green eyes were wide and jittery.  He could feel each minute fluctuation in his cousin’s heartbeat and breath.  All logical reactions to a carefully exerted force.

Except Harry’s hand never trembled.  He kept his weapon pressed firmly on the offensive, held precisely over the most vulnerable part of the human body.  That, if nothing else, was enough to convince Sasuke that his cousin was withholding significant information.

“Who trained you to fight?” Sasuke demanded, even as he put more pressure against the point at his neck.  If Harry was going to push him, he was going to push back.  He never walked away from a challenge. 

He didn’t know whether to be pleased or not when his cousin gave ground.  Harry did not lower his weapon completely, but he let Sasuke push his arm down.  He gave up the advantage of having Sasuke’s head tilted to an awkward angle, and by doing so, surrendered control of the situation.  His cousin might think he knew how to use a weapon and he was probably more than proficient with it, but it was clear to any seasoned fighter that he wasn’t a killer.  He simply lacked the all or nothing attitude that came after taking everything from someone else.

Sasuke watched the slight quiver that finally worked its way into his cousin’s hand, the pinched look in his eyes, the steady but sharp inhale and exhale of breath.  No, his cousin was no killer.  Not yet.  But if his reactions and determination were anything to go by, it was only a matter of time.

Sasuke now had a new goal to add to his swiftly growing list.  Just below killing Itachi, and keeping his cousin alive, there was now the task of keeping his cousin a civilian.  The Uchiha clan may have been a ninja clan, but look where it had gotten them.  No – it would be much better for all involved to keep Harry away from that.

Sasuke took a deep breath.  Then another.  That was the thing to focus on.  Someone had been teaching his cousin things he should not know.  Someone had threatened him.  Neither had progressed far enough to cross that barrier between fighter and man-killer.  The important thing now was to gain control of the situation again.  He needed a plan of attack.  Like any other confrontation of two wills, he needed a strategy.  Something aggressive enough to compel his cousin to answer without compromising any of his primary goals.  Simple – theoretically.  But he wasn’t declared a genius for nothing.

Naurto was still hovering behind him, his energy practically physically vibrating around him.  He was yapping about something, his voice buzzing in Sasuke’s ears the way it always was, telling him what he should and shouldn’t be doing.

“Shut up, dobe.”

And for once, there was silence.

Sasuke leaned in till his bangs brushed against his cousin’s.  “Harry-kun,” he said quietly, in a voice far more gentle than he really felt at the moment.  “I can not count on you in a fight if I don’t know what you are capable of.  Who taught you?”  It was a reasonable enough question.  He only needed to know so that he could decide whether or not someone needed to have their arms broken.

Harry stared back at him, nearly cross-eyed in the effort from behind those ridiculous glasses.  Sasuke’s proximity was clearly causing his cousin discomfort and Sasuke was very careful not to let the self-satisfied smirk show too early.  The sudden shift in tone was enough to throw the other boy off balance, and Sasuke was not about to pass up the opportunity.  Just because he did not usually bother with social niceties did not mean he didn’t know how to lay it on thick.  “Harry-kun,” he repeated.  “What if whatever you are afraid of really _does_ follow you here?  Don’t I deserve to know what I might need to defend myself against?”

….Bull’s-eye! 

Harry’s eyes widened even further, and Sasuke had to fight down the urge to snicker in triumph.  It was only to be expected, after all.  Sasuke _never_ missed his target.

Behind him, Naruto made a gagging noise like he’d tried to swallow his own tongue and choked on it.  Let him.  The only thing that mattered was the way Harry’s breath hitched, and the steady pressure against Sasuke’s neck disappeared as Harry’s fingers went limp.

Sasuke moved without thinking – moved the way only a well trained weapon did.  Habit and muscle memory led him smoothly through the steps.  With only a sharp twist and a flick of his wrist he had the weapon pointed up and away.  Harry’s distraction was not enough for Sasuke to disarm him, but it was all the opening he needed to regain complete control.  Pinning the other boy’s wrist up above his head, firmly enough that it couldn’t even twitch, Sasuke felt safe in ignoring the threat.

“Do you understand now?” he whispered, his tone once more in his own rough, blunt way.  “This is not a game.  _Secrets cost lives_.  It’s the first thing a shinobi learns.  It’s often the last thing they’ll ever know.  Your secrets could cost me my life.  They could cost Naruto his life.  They could cost me your life.  We are _not_ doing this anymore.”  Sasuke paused and slowly breathed in deeply.  “Harry,” he stressed.  “You have to tell me.”

Harry pulled on his wrist.  He tried twisting his arm free, yanking it back and forth with enough force that there would be bruises latter.  When that did not work, he moved onto the offensive, trying to lash out with knees and elbows.  While Sasuke would have a few new bruises of his own, it was still too little too late.  The angle was all wrong.  Some training on defensive tactics might not be remiss.  It shouldn’t be hard to get his cousin up to the level where he could execute the basics sufficiently.  Not getting caught in the first place was the main key, but there were a few more creative moves that Sasuke had picked up over the years that he could share…  For now, all Sasuke had to do was merely hold his position, firm in his own practiced ability to keep an opponent down.

It was cruel in some ways, trapping someone like that.  It hadn’t happened often in Sasuke’s life, but he could remember vividly the frustration and hopelessness of being unable to buck off another’s weight.  Freedom of movement was one of those things that were so deeply ingrained in the psyche: the ability to act and have your body respond, to at least be able to try, to be a part of the surrounding environment for better or worse.  It was more than just finding yourself up against an unmovable object; it was to be that unmovable object.  It was instinct to fight back. 

Sasuke bore it silently.  It would not last for long, and it was ultimately in Harry’s best interest.  He knew that, and it was a simple matter of holding to that.  Soon enough it became obvious that the effort was futile at this point.  Harry slumped suddenly, hanging almost in a dead weight from his pinned position.  He was panting, slightly, with his face twisted up into a respectable impression of a snarl.  More frustrated than anything else, Sasuke suspected.  That was fine.  He could work with frustrated.

Sasuke opened his mouth to start in on his next assault, fully prepared to play off of Harry’s obvious preoccupation with playing the hero when his cousin cut him off. 

“I can’t,” Harry blurted out into the waiting stillness, repeating himself in a voice that was little more than a harsh whisper.

Sasuke’s eyes narrowed.  “Can’t, or won’t?”

            “Can’t!” Harry snapped back.  His eyes stayed focused, glaring at Sasuke’s shoulder as if he couldn’t bear to even look the other boy in the eye. 

            “Who?” he growled out.

            Harry merely shook his head, jaw tight.

            Sasuke bit off a curse before jerking his hands away from his cousin.  He needed space before he did something he really would regret.  This refusal to talk was not a show of loyalty or some other sort of misplaced idiotic concept like that.  Harry _wanted_ to tell him.  He knew it.  He could see it in Harry’s face, hear it in his voice.  He was scared of something.  And whatever it was, whatever they had threatened him with, whatever they had done to him – it was more intimidating than what Sasuke could manage without actually hurting Harry.  Which in Sasuke’s mind could only mean one thing: that someone _had_ hurt him and that was even more infuriating.  He couldn’t exactly _torture_ his own cousin, and he suspected that anything short of that was not going to work.

            And his mind was only too willing to imagine the sort of methods one used to keep a person from talking.  Everything from Orochimaru’s complex psychological warfare to the more mundane use of fists and clubs – he could easily imagine a hundred different methods in just the same way he could call to mind a hundred different jutsus.  It did not take much to jump from that bit of ordered recollection to imagining Harry in the place of all those nameless, insignificant victims from before.  He already had the clear memory of Harry’s bruised and bloody face drained of color and terrified at the sight of a masked man in the window.  Those ANBU masks only had one purpose.  And if Harry had seen one before, then that meant he had been far too close to – to the kinds of things one did not mention around jumpy genin, much less ignorant civilians and was _that_ why his cousin was somewhere in between the two?

And how the hell was he supposed to fix this if Harry wouldn’t – couldn’t – tell him about it?  How the hell was he supposed to undo what had clearly already been done?  And what if there was even _more_ to it than he realized?  Normal civilians did not wake up in the middle of the night terrified and then try to pass it off as nothing.  Sasuke had had the PTSD talks just like every other genin in training, and again after his brief…departure.  He knew what the signs looked like.  He had an intimate acquaintance with enough of them to recognize the symptoms.  How in the seven hells was he supposed to fix _that_?

            Sasuke clenched his fists and physically tried to shake away the memories and imaginations of possibilities.  He did not want to see it, even if he needed to know.  He had to force himself to stop picturing it and focus his eyes back on the here and now and the mess at hand. 

Harry was slumped against the wall. He was coughing weakly even as one hand rubbed gently at his throat.  The other was held low, but once more pointing his weapon towards Sasuke.  Instinct made Sasuke want to disarm him again.  Instead he forced himself to stagger back another step.  He was not going to attack his cousin.  No matter what.  He wasn’t going to be that person.  He continued backward until a chair bummed into his leg and then, with barely a thought and a twist of his hip, he caught it with arch of his foot and sent it flying across the room.  The back edge of it caught the window, cracking the thick glass into a spider web before cheap wood splintered into a dozen pieces.  He had now managed to destroy Naruto’s entire dining room set.  Pity there wasn’t more of it. 

For a moment, there was complete silence.  Naruto stood frozen over what remained of his table.  He did not move, but Sasuke could see the tense arch of his feet, the slight cock of one knee, and knew the other boy was ready to make a race out of it if Sasuke should even twitch in Harry’s direction.  The slight possibility that such defensiveness might be necessary was worse than a hard blow to the chest and it left Sasuke stunned enough that he couldn’t breathe.  Even Harry’s ragged coughing had fallen silent, his eyes wary, and his weapon still drawn.   

The sharp, single rap on the door hit all of them like a slap to the face.  Harry’s armed hand jerked partially towards the door before snapping back.  Apparently, Sasuke still ranked as the bigger threat.  It was not as complimentary as it usually was.

None of them moved.  Then knock came again, louder, and hard enough to shake loose the spider web above.

Naruto scowled.  “Busy!” he shouted back before efficiently seeming to ignore the door’s very existence in order to focus all of his (limited) attention on the storm brewing in his sitting room.

For Sasuke, however, it was a welcomed distraction.  After all, it gave him every right to tear apart whatever miserable, presumptuous, miscreant that would freaking _dare_ interrupt.  With an inward snarl and a silent step, Sasuke stalked across the distance and flung the door open with one hand while the other slipped a kunai out of one pocket and jabbed it straight for the neck.  If it had been a civilian, thing might have been rather messy.  But civilians stayed away from Naruto’s apartment as much as possible and a civilian never would have made it as far as the door without one of them noticing the intrusion.  Instead, metal crashed into metal and with a piercing shriek, slid off one another again.

There was the faint rustle of leaves from down the hall and Kakashi smiled.

“Am I interrupting?”

Sasuke cursed but let both of his arms drop limply to his sides.  As distracting as a good spar with Kakashi might be, the older man had a serious objection to dueling within the city limits.  At least with Sasuke.  And it was one thing to blow off some steam bashing heads with a comrade and an entirely different thing dealing with a vaguely disappointed and very much annoyed Kakashi.  Sasuke scowled even as he stepped back away from the door.

And Kakashi just grinned and grinned.  Though Sasuke noted that he did not lower his kunai until Sasuke moved back.  With a flick of one eye, the older man took in the broken furniture, Naruto’s nervous stance, the cracked window and Harry’s distinctly bruised throat.  One white eyebrow shot up.

“I guess it’s a good thing I decided to use the door this time and not the window,” he commented as if to himself.  Sasuke didn’t miss the sharp edge to it however.  And while any other time he would have made it a point of pride to ignore the man, this time was different.  Something twisted and heavy seemed to fill his gut even as his face heated.  There were going to be _bruises_.  Hand shaped ones, all over his cousin’s neck. 

Kakashi did not need to say anything.  Sasuke could figure out on his own that he had managed to mess up something as simple as not hurting his cousin _himself_ – much less defending him against outside threats.  Sasuke clenched his fists.  He wanted, in a way he had not for many years, to hit something.  Except everything disposable had already been destroyed and all that was left was warm living flesh that was perhaps a bit too close to the very thing he was trying not to think about.

With a small shuffle, Kakashi managed to rearrange himself until his back was against the door and his hands in his pockets, as he did that half lean, half slump, that managed to make him look smaller and shorter than his true frame ever should appear.  “Is there a problem, Sasuke-kun?” he murmured.

Damn straight there was one, and Kakashi damn well knew it.  Sasuke glared back at him.  Maybe picking a fight with Kakashi would be a good idea…

Then Naurto laughed, high and sharp.  “No, no problem,” he interrupted with a stuttering chuckle.  “No problem at all.  Why would you think there was a problem?  Everything’s fine.  Nothing we can’t handle.  Right, Harry-kun?  Right.”  The blond boy inhaled sharply.  “What’s up with you, sensei?”

            …for Naruto, that was actually subtle. 

Kakashi grinned back with equally fake cheer, but his response was directed to Sasuke.  “The Hokage would like to see you, Uchiha-san” he said.  “Both of you.” 

 

It was Ino that let Sakura know she needed to be at the Hokage’s tower in the wee hours of the morning.  She’d detoured by Sakura’s house on the way home from nightwatch duty and had passed the message through her window.  Shikamaru had heard from another chunnin, who’d heard from someone else, that there’d been an incident at the Uchiha compound and that the lone survivor of the clan was being brought in for questioning – again.  No one mentioned Harry-kun.  Which only went to prove that while the gossip chain was in good health in Konoha, some secrets could still be kept quiet even in a village of shinobi.  Sakura had made sure to carefully thank Ino – with the required insults to the other girl’s appearance, skills and intelligence, a sentiment that Ino cheerfully if wearily returned – without mentioning Harry-kun.  It wasn’t her place to.  Not yet.  That was an honor reserved for Sasuke, even if he didn’t see it that way.  After all, it wasn’t everyday that the head of a clan was able to welcome a new member into their family.  And for one with such a tragic and somewhat tarnished history such as Sasuke-kun, the good will and general happiness of such an occasion should be savored.

Assuming disaster hadn’t struck already.

Sakura rolled an acorn under one foot, back and forth, as she waited outside of the Hokage’s tower.  This late at night, the front desk was formally closed.  A duty shinobi waited at the second check point, but they had strict rules about visitors staying out of the building at this hour unless one had an official summons from the Hokage.  And despite her apprenticeship, Sakura didn’t technically have one.  And desk shinobi were very strict about such things.  So she waited outside like a good chunnin.  If Sasuke was being summoned, then Kakashi-sensei would be the one sent to fetch him.  Kakashi-sensei had enough authority to deem whether or not Sakura’s presence was objectable or not.  All she had to do was wait for him.

Wait, and try not to think about the hundred and one things that could have happened at the Uchiha compound that could be described as an “incident.” 

She was failing pretty miserably at it.

With a huff, she rolled her distraction to the back of her heel and with a twist, crushed it.  Enough with this waiting.  It shouldn’t be too hard to find Sasuke and her sensei.  If she met them halfway, maybe they could fill her in before they had to worry about nosy ears listening in.  With a light step she moved out of the courtyard surrounding the Hokage’s tower and was about to hop up onto the nearest building to start her search when she felt them moving towards her.  They were on the street, moving slow, and coming from the direction Naruto’s apartment was in.  She should have guessed.

She hesitated only long enough to stretch her legs out with a few quick simple twists before jogging lightly down the road to meet them.  She _had_ been sleeping quite peaceable before this whole mess, and her body had quite liked the relaxed lassitude she’d had it in.  If the others were moving that slowly then there wasn’t any point in rushing.  No one must be in danger of dying.  Already dead, quite possibly, but not actively dying.

Three streets later she met up with the four of them trudging slowly towards the center of town. Kakashi-sensei absently waved one hand at her the moment she rounded the corner.  It didn’t take long after that for Naruto to perk up and wave his whole arm and half his body as he called out to her loudly.  He’d had his head down and a scowl on his face the second before he realized she was there, but now he was all smiles and likely woke a few of the streets residents with his boisterous good mornings and how-are-you’s.

Sakura smiled back gamily before flicking his ear.  “It’s still nighttime, Naruto!  Keep your voice down.”  While he protested that it _technically_ wasn’t night any more, Sakura flicker her eyes up and over.  Sasuke hadn’t so much as shifted over to accommodate her arrival when she joined their merry little pack.  He’d simply kept moving forward, head up, eyes focused on what was ahead, and ignored everything else.  She unfortunately couldn’t say it was unusual behavior for him and it didn’t tell her a whole lot about whatever must had happened.  And only a fool would dare to ask him at this point.

So Sakura turned her back to him and smiled brightly up at their teacher.  “Do you mind if I come with you, Kakashi-sensei?” she asked, holding her hands behind her back and flicking her hair out of her eyes.  The movement gave her a convenient reason to check out the rest of their little party since Harry-kun wasn’t walking beside Sasuke.  For some reason, he plodded along on the far side of Kakashi-sensei, looking very much like a civilian who’d been dragged out of bed before the sun was up.  Skipping a quick step ahead brought him better into view for her.  Then she nearly tripped over her own feet.  Was that a cut on his face?  And what in heaven’s name had happen to his _throat_?  It was already turning a sickeningly dark color that suggested tissue and possible muscle damage.

“What the _hell_ -”

“Sakura-chan!” Kakashi-sensei interrupted, using his very best imitation of a scandalized tone, which was about as convincing as the rest of his lies.  “Lovely little ladies shouldn’t use such vulgar language.”  Which in Kakashi-speak meant shut-the-hell-up.

She snapped her mouth closed and settled for glaring at him while everyone else focused on the road ahead.  She was a medic nin.  It was her job to ask how people got hurt.  Fix it.  And then go kill the something that did it.  If he thought for a second she was going to let this slide…

“Sorry, sensei,” she managed to ground out through clenched teeth.  “Of course I wouldn’t do something like that,” she temporized as she quickly tried to work out a different angle.  If asking directly about it wasn’t an option, then she’d have to pick her battles a little more carefully.  “It’s just that it’s awful early, don’t you think, sensei?  I know it makes me tired.  What about you, Harry-kun?  I’m sure you’re just as tired, ne?” 

And here was the tricky part.  Harry-kun was on the far side of Kakashi-sensei.  If she was going to get at him, she’d have to step around her teacher.  And if Kakashi-sensei seriously didn’t want her anywhere near him, she wasn’t going to get very far.  But a little finesse and a lot of hair flicking went a long way sometimes.  Especially with Kakashi-sensei.  Oh, he wouldn’t fall for it for a second, but he sometimes rewarded good work by letting it slide.

“I bet they didn’t even stop for breakfast, did they?” she asked with a soft whine to her voice.  “I think I’ve got some crackers with me, though.   Here, want to share them with me, Harry-kun?” she asked.  With a bounce in her step, she slipped around the front of Kakashi-sensei, and pulled a protein bar out of one of her packs.  She didn’t usually bother to carry them within the city, but luck was with her today and she had one left over in her pack.  It made a handy excuse to move next to Harry-kun right now without drawing Sasuke’s attention or annoying Kakashi-sensei.

It also helped that Harry-kun seemed to buy it at face value too.  He looked up finally as she moved close enough to brush shoulders with him.  He apparently hadn’t been listening to her at all, she realized with a huff.  He looked surprised when she handed him a torn off piece of fruit flavored, chemically enriched, pressed and processed grain mill.  But he took it obediently and nibbled on a corner.  It wasn’t much, but maybe it’d put a little color on his face.

The cut there wasn’t too bad, and it looked like someone had already tried to clean it.  Something older then, but not before the last time she’d seen him only hours ago.  The marks on his throat, however, were still very pink and swollen.  They’d continue to darken as time went by, she was sure of it.  Her fingers twitched to _do_ something about it, but it would be a little hard to casually brush her hand across his neck.  If it had been another boy, she probably could have gotten away with it by merely batting her eyelashes a few times then retreating before they knew what had hit them.  But this was Sasuke’s cousin.  She couldn’t use flirting on Sasuke’s cousin.  Not only would it be humiliatingly similar to embarrassing moments of their childhood, but she was pretty sure it would freak Sasuke out.  With a sigh Sakura nibbled on her own piece of energy bar.  For now she’d have to settle for passing a chunk of it to Harry-kun.  He didn’t seem to have any trouble eating, which suggested the damage was mostly superficial. 

The walk to the Hokage’s tower wasn’t a long one, but forcing a couple of tense shinobi to go at the pace of a civilian made it feel like ages.  She wasn’t surprised when Naruto broke the silence.  She half expected him to come over by her and Harry-kun and start begging for his own bit of breakfast, but he stayed loyally by Sasuke’s side.

“Sakura!” he whined suddenly.  “You won’t believe what Sasuke-teme did!  He broke my new kitchen table!”

Sakura took the bait gratefully.  “The one Chouji gave you?” she asked in return.

“Yep!”

Sakura pressed her lips together and tried to hide the smile that threatened to spread across her face.  “Didn’t he break the last one too?”

Naruto grinned back at her before scowling deeply at the back of Sasuke’s head.  “Yeah, the bastard.”

For a moment there was silence and Sakura struggled to find a way to get the conversation rolling again.  Then Sasuke growled softly.  “I did not,” he snapped back.

“Did too!”

Sasuke glared over at the other boy.  “I wasn’t even there, dobe.”

Naruto folded his arms over his chest.  “It was still your fault.”

“How can it be my fault if I wasn’t even there?”

“Cause,” Naruto floundered for a moment but then grinned confidently and with a nod of his head declared “You’re a bastard.  You pissed me off, and that’s why the table got broken, so it’s all your fault.  Cause you’re a bastard.  Duh.”

Sasuke relaxed enough to roll his shoulders as if physically shrugging off Naruto’s accusations.  “That’s not an argument, moron.”

And then Harry-kun scoffed very quietly. 

He had his head turned away, but all four of the shinobi heard it as clearly as if he’d shouted it across the empty street.  Sakura couldn’t say exactly _what_ the noise was supposed to mean, but it had a smothering affect on the group.  Sasuke’s eyes darted away from the rest of the group.  He once more focused all of his attention on marching forward with the same kind of single-mindedness as if he were all alone on the road that night.  Sakura started at the way his shoulders tightened and the clenched muscles running across his back and sighed.  Maybe trying to lighten the mood by teasing Sasuke hadn’t been the way to go.  Obviously, whatever was going on involved him.

Part of her automatically wanted to defend Sasuke’s side, but the guilty, nervous look on Naruto’s face made it hard to do that.  Naruto clearly knew what was going on, and while he seemed determined to stay no more than a step behind Sasuke, he wasn’t arguing one way or the other.  If he thought Sasuke was in the right, his sense of honor likely wouldn’t let him say otherwise no matter how much he might want to sometimes.  But if he wasn’t stoutly sticking up for his teammate, why wasn’t he ranting about whatever was really going on?  Naruto rarely passed up a chance to take Sasuke down a peg or two.  But there were some things even the two of them wouldn’t tease each other about.

It wasn’t until Harry-kun reached up absent-mindedly to rub at the marks across his neck that Sakura started to suspect the worse.

Accidents happened.  Every shinobi knew that, and everyone who had a relative that was shinobi knew that.  It was so easy to push a little too hard every now and then.  And a shinobi’s reflexes didn’t decrease with fatigue – they just became more unpredictable.  Everyone knew about it but no one much talked about it.  There was nothing to talk about.  If Sakura broke a plate by pushing too hard on it while washing the dishes, she simply cleaned up the pieces and tossed them out.  If Naruto came up unexpectedly on Sasuke a little too quickly, he simply rolled with the punch directed his way and laughed.  The lapse in control was a little embarrassing, but nothing more.

Of course, accidents also didn’t tend to leave finger shaped bruises wrapped around a civilian’s neck.  You didn’t accidently try to choke someone.

Sakura clenched her fist but resisted the urge to punch her stupid, thoughtless, moron of teammate.  Somehow, giving him the beating he deserved probably wouldn’t help reassure Harry-kun that they weren’t all violent, uncivilized brutes.

Kakashi-sensei stopped her from doing anything more by letting out a long and weary sigh.  “Hmm, I guess this _would_ still count as willful destruction of personal property of a Konoha citizen,” he announced while scratching the back of his head.  His one visible eye darted over to stare at Sakura and Harry.  “Seems to me like that probably deserves some good old fashion d-rank missions to make up for it.  Wouldn’t you think so, Sakura-chan?”

Sakura winced.  Sasuke-kun had hated d-rank missions when they were 12.  While the three of them had been held back for some time now, it had still been years since any of them had been subjected to clean-up duty.  And somehow she suspected that Kakashi-sensei had some of the more – smelly – missions in mind.

“I suppose so, Kakashi-sensei,” she agreed mildly.  “Though maybe a new table for Naruto wouldn’t be remiss either,” she added with a faint smile.  “That apartment’s pathetic enough as it is.”

“Hey!  There’s nothing wrong with my place!”

Almost as one, they all turned their heads and stared at Naruto.  Even Harry-kun.

Naruto pouted and crossed his arms.  “It’s not that bad.  At least it’s clean.”

“You call that clean?” Sasuke retorted.

“Hey, I totally meant to take that trash out.  That doesn’t count.”

“Don’t worry about it, Sasuke-kun,” Kakashi-sensei announced.  “You’ll have plenty of time to demonstrate your cleaning skills latter…”

 

When they reached the tower from the other day, it was Kakashi-sensei that led them through the large front doors.  The building was nearly empty as they moved down one hallway after another, through one locked door after another.  It only made sense that things would be closed up this late at night, Harry reasoned.  After all, lucky people where at home in their beds, not getting dragged all around town in the wee hours of the morning.

With a sigh, Harry continued to troop along behind Kakashi-sensei.  The man had his book out once more, showing off his rather remarkable skills at walking without looking where he was going.  He made a strangely fitting lead to their sad little train of people.  Harry stared at the design on the man’s back and tried not to ignore the feeling of being stared at as everyone else walked along behind him.

Sakura had pointedly fallen back to walk behind Harry as soon as they had entered the building.  She’d smiled brightly as she had, the same way she had when she shared her snack with him.  Oddly enough, it wasn’t as comforting the second time around.  Harry was beginning to suspect it had something to do with her getting her way.  Regardless, it was hard to be a stubbornly rude to a pretty girl who smiled like that.  And it wasn’t really that he minded Sakura walking behind him, he just wish the rest of their little party wasn’t lurking around where he couldn’t see them. 

There was nothing quiet as nerve racking as having someone he had just gotten in a fight with walking behind him.  It made him want to rub the back of his neck.  Or punch something. 

Harry felt his skin flush as the sudden desire rushed through him.  It wasn’t like him to start a fight like that.  It wasn’t.  He was better than that.  Just because Sasuke had technically started it back there by throwing his weight around the way he did, didn’t mean that Harry had the right to act like a hooligan himself.  Even if the other boy was being a total prat about the whole thing.  Being nosy and acting like a bully.  Frankly, it wasn’t any of his bloody business.

Harry shoved his hands inside his pockets.  His fingers automatically curled around the length of wood safely tucked away there.  Years of the Dursley’s threatening hell and high water if he even so much as hinted at the very idea of magic had trained Harry to keep his mouth shut.  He never thought he’d actually kind of miss their willful ignorance.  It was so much easier in some ways not to have to explain anything, ever.  But then again – an assassin had never popped up in the middle of the Dursley’s sitting room before, either.

Harry scowled.  Bad enough to have the Death Eaters after him.  Now he had freakish men in black with cat eyes trying to kill him in his sleep.  Sasuke had said something like this might happen, but Harry hadn’t thought he meant _now_ and _here_.  It didn’t really seem fair not to have some warning that something foul was afoot. 

But he wasn’t on Privet Drive or safely tucked away deep in Hogwarts.  There wasn’t any blood magic here to protect him.  No thickly warded walls.  Just a small quiet little village, a ghost town of a neighborhood and one surly cousin.  Who didn’t know just how much trouble Harry could be to those around him.  Who didn’t know what happened to the last person to claim Harry as family.

Sasuke was right.  Harry couldn’t not tell him.  No matter what the ministry might think of it.  Even if they tried to get him kicked out of school.  Harry couldn’t stay here and put people in danger without telling them.

Harry hunched his shoulders and sighed.  None of that changed the fact that Sasuke was still a jerk who attacked people unprovoked.  And he was not looking forward to this conversation.  But like all things he didn’t want to happen, the time came for too quickly.  It seemed like no sooner did he realize he really was going to have to figure out a way of explaining how weird he really was than they came up to the Hokage’s door.  Kakashi-sensei didn’t even knock.  He simply bumped the door open, book still in one hand, and held it open for the rest of them to go through.

Harry straightened his shoulders and crossed the threshold.  There was no helping it now.  The truth was going to come out.  He might as well take it with as much dignity as possible.  Simply having reached a firm decision made it easier to meet the eye of what had to be the most intimidating woman he had ever met.  She sat behind her desk, head propped up on one hand, managing to look both bored and annoyed as hell.  It was such a far cry from the sternly disapproving visage of Professor McGonagall, that for a moment, Harry almost smiled.  Then he saw the other two men standing in the room and his step faltered. 

He’d never get used to those masks.

He had one too many memories of blood and circles of dark magic and death.

The others slipped into the room around him like water flowing pass a misplaced bit of stone.  It wasn’t until Sasuke was practically alongside Harry that he noticed the foul expression on the other’s boy face.  But before Harry could glare back, Sasuke was moving beyond him.

“This is uncalled for and unacceptable,” Sasuke growled out loudly.  “ANBU have no business being here!  A full ANBU guard is hardly required for-”  

“Formal complaint duly noted, Uchiha-san,” the Hokage drawled.  “Now shut up.  Two men hardly count as a full guard and I’ll do whatever I see fit.  About time you brats got here.”

“Hey, it’s a long walk, ba-chan,” Naruto replied with an easy grin.

“You be quiet too, brat,” the Hokage snapped back, not at all distracted by the blond boy’s carefree swagger.  Her eyes focused in on Harry instead, with a kind of intensity that was even worse than Snape at his best.  At least with Snape there was no urge to confess everything.  All he had to do was keep his mouth shut as much as possible when dealing with Snape.  The dark look in the Hokage’s eyes made Harry suspect that keeping quiet was almost as dangerous as blabbing out even the worst of secrets.  It was a very effective stare.

Sasuke didn’t seem to think much of it, however.  “Hokage, I-”

“I said shut up,” she cut him off without looking away from Harry. She steepled her fingers in front of her face and began in a very low, sedated voice that still managed to make something in Harry’s spine quiver, just a little.  “I currently have a foreign nin in my I&T holding cell,” she announced, “with a very unique burn pattern across his chest and a fractured skull.  Since I also have a body in my morgue that better matches Uchiha’s idea of a measured response, I can only assume that the former is your handiwork.  It was a rather pathetic blow to the head, which is why I know it couldn't have been your idiot of a cousin.  He may have more ego than brains, but I doubt he's capable of making such a rookie mistake.  What I'm more interested in that burn pattern.”  All of the humor disappeared as quickly as it had appeared as she continued to stare at him like a mouse caught under the gaze of a descending owl.

“He’s alive?” Something deep in Harry’s chest relaxed suddenly and the air rushed out of his lungs.  He hadn’t even realized how worried part of him had been about that.  It was one thing to fling about hexes or to get into school yard scuffles where the worst that would happen was a bloodied nose.  Even during some of the most harrowing of his adventures, he’d never personally physically been as close as he had that night.  He knew one day he would, that he had a duty to perform.  Both Dumbledore and the prophecy had made that quite clear that he wasn’t going to escape that destiny.  But that didn’t mean he had to get a head start on killing people.

The Hokage snorted indelicately.  “I hope you didn’t really think that weak blow to the head would be sufficient trauma to kill a man.  I've known six year olds that could do better than that.”

Harry flushed angrily.  “I wasn’t _trying_ to kill anyone!” he shouted back.  His hands balled into fists at his sides.  How could she think he was capable of such a thing?  She barely even knew him.  Was it so easy to believe he was a killer? 

She only smirked back at him and raised one eyebrow.  “So you don’t deny burning and assaulting the man?”

“ _He_ tried to kill _me_!  I didn’t do anything wrong!”

The Hokage slammed one open hand down on her desk.  “Do I look like I care what you think counts as right or wrong?” she yelled back at him.  Apparently, he’d finally made her mad.  It wasn’t as gratifying as he might have thought it would be.  “Let me make this very clear for you, Potter, since your cousin seems to have failed to properly explain things to you,” she continued darkly.  “The only thing that matters in this village is what _I_ say matters.  We’ve had a serious breach in security.  I will not allow such vulnerability within my village.  Let me make this perfectly clear to both of you, Uchiha.  I am the Hokage of this village.  My word is law here.  I will not repeat myself again.  I don’t care what you think _might_ happen, I can promise you, you won’t like what _will_ happen if you don’t start explaining yourself.  _Fast_.”

Harry flinched back not just from the violent woman’s outburst but also because despite everything, she was right.  In more ways than one.  Even Sasuke was right.  Harry couldn’t not tell them the truth.  If he didn’t, and something did happen, it would be his fault.  Again.

He’d already lost one person he cared about.  And he knew all too well what it felt like not to be told thing.

But before he could figure out what to say, where to even begin, Sasuke interrupted once more.  Harry had expected the other boy to argue _with_ the Hokage.  After all, he’d just slammed Harry into a wall for not answering his own questions.  What Harry hadn’t expected was for Sasuke to step in front of him.

“Hokage-sama,” Sasuke said gravely, his hands clenched at his sides.  “There is more to this situation than you realize.  As the head of my clan, I will address - ”

He didn’t get any further than that, however.  The Hokage slammed both of her hands down on the massive desk in front of her, cracking the top of it and sending a tower of scrolls tumbling to the floor.  “Uchiha, if I have to tell you to shut up one more time, I’ll have the ANBU remove you, and you will not like it!”

Harry didn’t miss the way her guards shifted farther away from her and closer to the rest of them.  And he doubted that Sasuke missed it either.  It was like watching two duelists line up so that they’d have a clear shot at each other without getting tangled up in anything else in the surrounding environment.  The whole tone of the conversation was quickly shifting to a place Harry really did not want to explore.  He’d made up his mind already.  He didn’t know what his cousin was thinking now, but the idiot was going to pick another fight if he wasn’t careful.

“It’s just that it’s complicated!” Harry exclaimed before his cousin could do anything else even more stupid.

Sasuke shifted one foot back and to the side so that he could both glare at the two masked individuals and also stare at Harry.  “It’s none of her business,” he hissed out, as if no one else in the room could hear him anyway.

Harry glared back before shrugging with a huff.  “Either you both are right and I need to tell you or you’re both wrong and I can happily ignore you.”

Sasuke opened his mouth to snap back with something else, but the Hokage beat him to it.  “Explain.  Now.”

Harry sighed slowly.  Now that it was time to, he still wasn’t sure how.  He’d never had to explain it to anyone else before.  Usually people were trying to explain things to him. And somehow, the choppy but candid explanation Hagrid had given to Harry when he was eleven just didn’t seem right.

“Mou,” Kakashi-sensei suddenly drawled out for his position leaning against the wall.  He had his nose buried in his book but was still apparently well aware of what was going on in the room.  “This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the rather interesting individuals who descended on your house after Itachi’s attack, would it?’

Everyone one in the room turned to stare at him.  He raised his head long enough to scrunch up his face happily before dropping his gaze back down to the book before him.

“Just when did you- ” Naruto started to demand before Harry cut him off with his own curt demand of “Who?”

“Hmm,” Kakashi-sensei replied, making a show of scratching the side of his nose lazily.  “A rather ragged looking old man, lots of scars.  Twitching looking girl with purple hair.  Rather questionable looking pair if you ask me.”

Harry found himself grinning without realizing it.  “There’s nothing questionable about Professor Lupin,” he replied firmly.  At least not to Harry.  Of all the adults he knew, Professor Lupin was probably the most trustworthy of the bunch.  Though calling Tonks twitchy was probably better than some of the other things she’d been called.  For a moment, it was nice to know that they had come looking for him.  That they had really meant it when they said they would be watching out for him this summer.  No one had really ever done that for him before.  But then he remembered just what exactly they had probably walked into.  “They’re alright, right?” he asked, a little embarrassed by how sharp his voice came out.  “I mean, nothing happened to them, right?  That man – he didn’t -”

Kakashi-sensei looked up, his one visible eye fixed on Harry.  “Last I saw, them seemed to be waiting impatiently for back-up.” He smiled again.  “After casting a number of _very_ interesting jutsus, that is.”

Harry’s eyes widened.  “Jutsus?  They don’t even know what a jutsu is! They couldn’t – I mean, it’s not the same thing!”  Harry had never even heard of a jutsu before coming here.  While it was possible that someone like Professor Lupin would have, he highly doubted his teacher went around casually using something so weird.  And now everybody was staring at him again, and his cousin was back to glaring.  Great.

“Care to explain?’ Sasuke drawled out sharply.

Harry glared back at him.  “I can’t.  There’s a law, you know.  I could get kicked out of school if I talk about it.”

“A lot worse is going to happen if you don’t,” the Hokage added ever so helpfully.

“I know, I know!” Harry replied in a huff.  “I got the point already.  I was just trying to make it clear just how much trouble I’m going to be in.”

Naruto snorted.  “It’s just school.”

“Not to me, it isn’t,” Harry replied quietly.  “Hogwarts is the closest thing I have to a real home and while it might not mean much to you, I really need to finish school.”

“You of all people, Naruto, ought to understand the importance of needing to see a training program though to the very end,” Kakashi-sensei added.

Harry didn’t know what they were talking about.  Naruto didn’t seem like the studious type, but he blushed slightly at Kakashi-sensei’s statement and ducked his head down.  The whole thing made Harry uncomfortable for Naruto, and his eagerness to move on from the strange moment made it easier to talk.  “There are some similarities, I guess, between what we do and jutsus,” Harry started and like a switch, everyone’s attention was once more on him.  It was uncomfortable and he tried to focus more on what exactly he was going to say than trying to guess what the others were thinking.  “It sort of is.  I mean, when Naruto showed me that one thing,” he explained, waving into the air as if to form a vague human shape.  The others seemed to get the point, especially the Hokage, who suddenly glared darkly as the blond boy.  “It kind of felt the same.  But different.  Like the difference between trying to push something versus trying to pull something, or something like that.”

Kakashi-sensei snapped his book shut and pushed himself away from the wall.  “Perhaps you could demonstrate for us, Harry-kun.”

Harry grimaced, but nodded.  He’d kind of wanted to avoid showing them too much, but there really wasn’t any way of explaining it without showing them something.  “I guess I could.  What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“Naruto!” the Hokage barked out.

Naruto snapped sharply to attention before breaking out into a wide grin.  “Got it!’ he chirped, before quickly snapping his hands together and recreating a doppelganger in the same way he had on the bridge.  The clone had the same cheeky smile and waved cheerfully.  “Fire away, Harry!” it declared loudly.  “I can take it!”

Harry had to laugh back at it.  It was almost too bizarre.  But Naruto had reassured him on the bridge that his clones were nothing more than smoke and shadows.  They might have a physical form, but they still weren't really real.  It was an ideal solution.  Harry nodded once, then reached for his wand.  So far he'd managed to keep it out of sight, mostly by not drawing it at all.  The argument at Naruto's had spoiled that, but only Naruto and Sasuke had been there to see it.  As it was, the rest of them watched him with undisguised interest as he pulled out a simple piece of wood.  It almost made him want to grin.  It wasn't often that Harry got to show off like this.  Usually, his best performances came in the middle of a life or death situation and were hardly occasions to be enjoyed.  Despite the tension in the room and his own misgivings, it was hard not to anticipate what was sure to be a good reaction.  Shifting his stance into one he'd picked up from watching both Remus and Sirius, Harry raised his wand, held it loosely in his hand and pointed it at the fake Naruto.  The spell was an easy one, but effective. 

“ _Petrificus Totalus!”_

The clone's eyes widened slightly and it tried to dodge to the left, but by the time it processed it really was in danger, it was too late.  The spell caught enough of the clone to latch on to it.  The spell had the desired effect of causing the clone's entire body to lock up and freeze in place.  Unfortunately for it, this left it off balance.  Gravity took its toll and the clone toppled sideways to the floor.  It exploded on impact into a cloud of smoke just like the first time Naruto had demonstrated his technique. 

Harry couldn't help a small little smile of achievement.  Apparently spells still really did work as long as he could get them off fast enough.  He wasn't a fool though.  With the speeds the others were moving at during practice, it wouldn't be easy, but at least it was possible. He could work with possible.  He glanced up to see how the others were taking it.

Naruto's mouth was hanging wide open as he pointed uselessly at his missing clone.  Sakura's eyes were wide as she stared at Harry.  Sasuke didn't seem to know who or what to glare at.  He kept going back and forth between Harry and the rest of the room.  Kakashi-sensei had his book once more out and held in front of him, but his headband was actually pushed up enough to expose his other eye.  It was squeezed shut at the moment however, the long scar dissecting it looking painfully scrunched up.  Only the Hokage remained exactly as she was, sitting calmly behind her desk despite the tell-tale cracks that raced across the surface of it.

Harry shifted his grip on his wand subconsciously, rubbing his thumb up and down the faint marks along the side of it.  “Um, that's basically what happened.  Oh, and I hit him on the head with one of those kunai things.  After stunning him of course.  I wasn't sure how else to explain what had happened and I kind of panicked but besides, he really did kind of deserve it, but I really didn't mean to hit him too hard and I hope he's okay.”

“He'll soon wish he wasn't,” the Hokage announced as she leaned back in her chair.  “But that doesn't matter.  What was that about stunning him?”

Harry had lowered his wand after the spell, but seeing the way the two guards seemed to be focused on him, he made sure to hold his arm down n as non-threatening a position as he could manage.  He couldn't quite bring himself to put it away now that he'd shown just what he was capable of.  “Um, it's a basic _Petrificus Totalus_.  We learn it in our first year of school.”

Naruto stepped forward suddenly and grabbed Harry by the shoulders.  “I will so totally teach you how to use Kage no Bunshin if you show me how to do that jutsu,” he announced before anyone else could react.  Sasuke was scowling furiously at Naruto's back, but didn't move any further when once it was clear that Naruto wasn't going to do anything else.

“I don't know if I can...” Harry answered.

Naruto didn't let go.  Instead he jerked Harry to the side a little so that he could stare down at his wand.  “The stick thing?  It's necessary?”

“My wand?” Harry replied feeling a little lost at the unexpected enthusiasm from the other boy.  “Yeah, kind of.  I mean, I could do a little without it when I was a kid, but nothing really formalized.”

“So?” Naruto said before nodding firmly.  “I'll get me one of those stick things.  Where do I get one?”

“Baka, if you don't let go of my cousin...” Sasuke growled out from behind him.

Naruto complied immediately, but that was all the attention he spared on his teammate.  “So?” he demanded.

“I don't know if you can,” Harry answered.  “You have to be a wizard to get into Diagon Alley.”

Naruto grinned slowly.  It was the kind of expression worthy of the Weasley Twins and was often the forbearer of the kind of bad things to come that more often than not involved a lot of sneaking, some clever spell use and things like dung bombs and slime. 

“So it's limited,” the Hokage said.  Harry glanced passed Naruto to give her a questioning look.  She was still leaning back in her chair, her eyes once more narrowed and her hands folded together in front of her.  “Access.  It's something your village is limiting access to.”

Harry didn't like to think of it that way, particularly with all of the aggression back home over muggleborns, but he couldn't deny the fact that one either was or was not allowed to be a part of the wizard world.  “I guess so.”

“Inherited?”

Harry flinched.  That was a little too close to the problems at home.  “No,” he said firmly.  “Not really,” he added.  “I mean, my parents were, but my mother's family wasn't.  And I guess my father's wasn't really either, were they.  But the Potters were.  Are.  I'm still a Potter.  Sort of.”  Harry flushed even as he trailed off uncertainly. 

Sasuke didn't give him much time to be embarrassed about the whole thing.  “Who trained you in this?” he demanded.  It was the same question he'd asked before, but somehow it didn't seem as ominous this time.  Maybe because everyone seemed to be taking Harry's big news very calmly.  As if people did these kinds of things every day.  And he supposed, around here, maybe they did.  It made being so stressed out about telling them seem kind of silly.

“There's a school, my school, Hogwarts.”

Sasuke nodded but he was still frowning.  “And they taught you to fight like this?”

Harry frowned.  “No, they teach us how to cast spells.  We're not supposed to fight while we're at school.”  At least, the majority of the student population wasn't supposed to be getting into fights while they were at school.  Just Harry was supposed to be the exception it seemed like. 

“Someone taught you to,” Sasuke countered sharply.  He was back to glaring, but it wasn't the typical glare that Harry was beginning to become very accustom to.  No, this was more the “I-know-you're-not-telling-me-everything” kind of glare. 

Harry sighed.  There was no sense in telling them about magic and not telling them at least a little about Voldemort.  “There's kind of war going on back home.  There've been some – incidences at school.  I learn fast.”  Short, sweet, and to the point – now time to move on.  “So am I in trouble?”

The Hokage rolled her eyes.  “The day is still young,” she announced.  “But no, I guess we won't throw you to Kakashi's dogs for this one.  Would we be correct in assuming that both sides of this war are using these spells?”

Harry nodded.

“Can we expect any of them to come here looking for you?”

Harry hesitated.  He'd gotten so use to assuming people were out to get him these days, he wasn't sure if he could remember a time when there wasn't someone looking to hurt him.  But despite the obvious lack of complete security here, he seriously doubted that Voldemort could manage this one.  “I don't think so, ma'am.  I'd never even heard of shinobi or jutsus before coming here.  I don't think anyone else had either.”

“Something we'd like to keep that way,” the Hokage replied gravely.  She waved one hand.  “Alright, I'm done with you for now.  We'll increase our standard guard and keep an eye out for anyone else targeting your clan, Uchiha,” she said, addressing Sasuke.  “I expect a full report from you on the incident.  Take your cousin home and try to keep him out of trouble.  Dismissed.”

Sasuke gave a curt bow then turned away sharply.  He started to reach out to grab Harry's arm but stopped short.  They stared at each other for a moment.  Sasuke's usual glare was absent, but in its place was one of the most blank expressions Harry had ever seen.  Finally the other boy spoke, so quietly even Harry had trouble hearing him and he was standing right next to him.  “I would prefer if we still remained at Naruto's until repairs can be made and I can relay my traps.”

Harry didn't know what traps he was talking about, and frankly, really didn't like the sound of it.  But it almost sounded like Sasuke was trying to ask him a question.  So Harry shrugged.  “That's fine with me,” he said.  “But if you break another table I'm hexing you.”

Harry wasn't surprised to hear Naruto chuckling at that, but he didn't think the Hokage would be able to hear them that clearly, or that she would laugh that loudly.


	12. Making Connections - Interlude 4

Interlude 4

 

            Between one breath and the next, the world bled once more back into familiar shapes of cracked and crumbling stone walls, a half hidden quarter moon and scorched and bloodied floor boards.  Severus Snape stumbled slightly, the ground rushing up to meet him.  It was almost _too_ smooth after rushing across a pockmarked empty quidditch field and he struggled to keep his balance.  He straightened quickly, arms tight at his sides, hidden within the folds of his robes. 

It would be a full meeting tonight.  Their numbers had swelled dramatically over the past few months.  The Dark Lord’s return had called home all of the old faithful.  Those that had failed to return had already been dealt with.  The more recent, much more public events at the ministry had only done more to attract the foolish.  Some had nothing else to lose after their public disgrace.  Some were attracted by the defiant image their Master had worked hard to develop.  Let the Headmaster and the Ministry try to paint the events of that night as a successful defeat of the Dark Lord.  What most people truly saw was defiance and power and the freedom for casual cruelty even in the heart of the ministry.  It had drawn the young, the reckless and the power hungry much more effectively than any government sanctioned recruitment program could ever hope to.

They made for such an eager and disposable workforce.  They would contribute greatly as a whole to the Dark lord’s campaign.  Despite how annoying they might be on the individual level.

An excellent example of as much was Harmor.

Their arrival had coincided enough to have Harmor stepping away from the arrival point just as Snape himself appeared, tripping over his own feet like the kind of clumsy teenage boy Harmor had been only three years before in Snape’s classroom.  The years had done little to improve the boy’s overall lack of intelligence or wit or composure.  Harmor was staring.  He wasn’t even trying to hide it.

Snape snarled.  Straightening his spine, he flung out his arm, his wand still clasped tightly in his hand, a painful and humiliating curse on the tip of his tongue.  He didn’t need to bother.  Harmor backed up so quickly he fell to the ground.  The idiot didn’t even bother trying to go for his own wand, he simply flung his hands up in front of his face as if that would do anything to block the kinds of hexes Snape had perfected as a child.

“Pathetic,” Snape sneered.  He slipped both his wand and his hands back into the deep folds of his robe.  “Get up.  Our Lord is waiting and he has no patience for imbecilic behavior,” Snape said before turning and stalking down the short hall to the main room.  The young man behind him actually had enough sense not to talk back.

If he had, Snape wouldn’t have hesitated to elevate some of his compounding annoyance.  Potter had once again managed to throw the entire wizarding world into chaos, dragging Snape along into the middle of it as well.  It had been less than 72 hours since the brat went missing.  Snape hadn’t slept since.  Certainly not out of _concern_ for the miscreant.  He really would hex the fool who even suggested as much.

By all rights, Snape should have been resting comfortably in the peace of his own home, with nothing to do but enjoy the blessed silence of three months without hide or hair of any little brats.  He should have known better.  Of course it wasn’t beyond Potter’s ability to ruin even that.  For nearly three days, Snape had done nothing but run from one master to another.  Hours spent being forced to listen to a bunch of hysterical Gryffindors and defending his own honor from wild accusations about his loyalty, his abilities as a spy and even his sexuality were followed by hours spent groveling at the Dark Lord’s feet between bouts of Crucio.

If they did ever find Potter, Snape was personally going to remove his innards and use them as garland.

The crowd that had gathered outside the main hall was hardly the energetic mass he had seen at a meeting two weeks ago.  The past 72 hours had done much to beat that excitement out of them.  No Death Eater had managed to escape their Lord’s wrath.  They had each been cast into the burning throws of the Crucio curse.  One of the faithful had already died from it and the massive heart failure it caused.  Undoubtedly, there would be wide spread brain damage as well among those unable to control their own spasming.  Joint damage awaited the rest of them.  The cartilage was fragile, and while potions could repair some of the damage, that was one of the few medical conditions that simply never fully be restored.

Snape’s own muscles and joints still ached fiercely from his own most recent round, but he still pushed through the waiting huddle.  Once they saw who he was, they parted like mice before a prowling cat.  Except Snape was not the feline hunter of that night, but rather simply a bigger rat.  It wasn’t fear or respect that sent them scraping behind him – it was relief.  As if Snape’s presence might sufficiently distract their Lord from their own lack of results.

Once Snape reached the edge of the inner circle, he did not hesitate to drop to his knees and lower his head submissively.  The others had only a moment to stare before their Lord appeared within their midst.  One moment there was nothing except the ruins of an old church with the moon above shining through the cracks and gaps in the ceiling – and before the next moment there stood the most dangerous dark wizard of their generation.  He appeared as smoothly as if Apperation was little more than child’s play.  Perhaps, to him, it was.

Every other Death Eater in that field fell to their knees.  The silence filled the night, not even so much as a murmur or a shuffling of feet.  Their Master let the stillness stretch on before finally speaking.  “How is it,” he hissed out, his voice still quiet but filled with deadly promise, “that the finest of all of Great Britain continue to fail me time and time again in such a simple task?”  Like a descending dementor, their Master glided from one end of the gathering to the other, his hands curled into claws and his red eyes literally glowing in the night.  His voice rose and roughened until the very grating sound of it caused pain to those that had displeased him.  “How do you lose one child?  He is not even under that old fools protection any longer!  And yet!  And yet my finest, my servants, have not even a shred of information to present to me!”

He came to a sudden halt, looming directly over Snape.  “My spy,” he drawled out in a voice that felt like dark power sliding slowly down Snape’s spine.  “My tool, my potions master, my subtle dagger in the night to drive into the heart of the phoenix.  _What_ do you bring to me?”

It was the dreaded question.  The one asked more than once a day ever since Potter went and disappeared.  It was nearly the same words every time for Snape, and something similar for every other senior Death Eater.  And there had yet to ever be a satisfactory enough answer from any of them.

Snape lowered his head even farther and tried to keep his entire body relaxed and loose in anticipation for what he knew was coming.  “My Lord,” he began quietly.  “The Order knows nothing more than they did that afternoon.  The Headmaster is struggling to maintain a calm control over his puppets while they are receiving reports that the Ministry is preparing to declare the boy dead.”

“And what of the boy?  What news do you bring your Master of young Potter?”

The muscles in Snape’s back spasmed and he struggled to keep his body as still as the dead.  “They know nothing more than they did that afternoon.”

“You mean _you_ know nothing more.”

“Yes, Master.”

The dark Lord turned away with a wave of one hand.  “Crucio.”

The pain, as always, seemed both to last forever but to take only the blink of an eye.  If unconsciousness was like a black hole that swallowed him whole, then the Crucio curse was like a burning put of red fire and pain that blocked out all else.  There was no true sense of time passing.  The pain seemed to go on forever, and yet each moment seemed too terrible for there to even be a next.  As suddenly as it had begun, it ended, leaving him gasping and shaking on the floor, his skin tight with heat even as chills threatened to spasm his body apart.

The Dark lord had already moved on to his next servant.  The other man would have even less to offer and suffer even more.  He didn’t even have the thin protection of having been the first to bring the news of Potter’s disappearance to their Master.  While the Dark Lord was fond of punishing the messenger, he also had a very long memory.  It had been best for Snape to have that dubious honor.  He’d even managed to convince the Headmaster that it was for the best.  At the time, they had had such little information to go on.  Being privy to as much of what the Death Eaters knew could only help them.  It had helped that Snape had been one of the first Order members to arrive at what remained of the boy’s house.  It had placed him in the prime position to know everything and to react to everything first.  Only the Tonks girl and the werewolf had been there before him, and they had managed only a half-arse inspection of the grounds.  They hadn’t found nearly as much as he had.  While some of that information would undoubtedly be useful if he needed to bargain for his own life, the cost had come very high.

The screaming continued for some time.  Eventually one voice would go hoarse, trailing off into more guttural moans than rendering shrieks.  There would be a brief moment of silence between one victim and the next, a softly murmured interrogation by their Lord, but it was only a matter of time before a new voice would start.  It was the noise that would follow him home that night.  More than the sights or the smells, it was always the screaming that would echo over and over again in his ears.

Like all things, however, it too had to end.  Their Lord grew tired of their continued fails and turned away in disgust.  Those that had been spared could only sigh in relief.  All of them would face the next meeting with dread.  All of them would scramble desperately to find something of value to present to their Master before the next meeting.  Snape sighed silently and start to push himself back up into a kneeling position, already thinking of the meeting the Headmaster would in turn demand after this – and the other report expected out of him. 

For he hadn’t been the only one lurking about in the ruins that afternoon.  And he doubted either of his current masters would ever guess that he now had a third.  Neither would ever stand for such a thing but he was dead either way.  His entire life was built upon silence and lies and this new complication was nothing different.  That didn’t mean he _liked_ it however, or that he wouldn’t betray the red-eyed bastard at the first chance he had.  But if he could manage to draw enough advantage out of this new task master to free himself, one way or another, from his other masters – well, there was only profit to be had there.  


	13. Making Connections - Day 3 Part 2

“What a mess,” Harry announced as he and Naruto came walking up to the house.  Sasuke paused long enough to look up from his work.  It hadn’t taken much to convince Naruto to take on the responsibility for watching over Harry for a few hours.  Not that any of them had worded it quite that way.  Sasuke was quickly learning that certain approaches were not only _not_ going to help but were actually making things more difficult.  So he was trying.  Really.  Phrasing it as if Harry and Naruto ought to take advantage of the time to catch up on some sleep and grab some food worked much better than exerting a firm vow out of Naruto not to leave Harry’s side for even a moment during the time it took Sasuke to piece things back together at home.

He had made good progress in the couple of hours he had had to himself.  The outer defenses had been disabled at some point.  He had replaced most of them, and even improved a couple.  Cleaning out all signs of the fight from what was now Harry’s room had been the next priority.  Doors were the third thing on his list, and the one he was currently in the middle of completing.  The inner doors that had been damaged or destroyed during the fight had been easy to replace with supplies readily available in the village.  The front door was a little more complicated.  It was designed to take more strain, and accordingly took more time to repair.  The work was fairly straight forward, however.  Support beams ran along there, and this ledge fit snuggling in with that.  Sitting on the front porch, half in and half outside of the house, with a hammer in one hand and a nothing to focus on but the task in front of him had been strangely relaxing.  Even the sun was cooperating as it slowly warmed the wooden floor boards beneath him.

It was no secret Sasuke preferred to work alone, though some might be surprised how much he had taken to enjoying the simplicity of household repairs.  Half the compound was in danger of collapsing any day now.  In the process of slowly piecing it back together over the past few months Sasuke had managed to develop a number of specific skills related to carpentry, plaster work and even plumbing.  While it had taken much longer than Sasuke had originally anticipated, it had also been much more rewarding than any D-rank mission he could remember.

Still – as nice as it had been to get some work done, Sasuke could not deny feeling relieved to see his cousin walking towards him.  He was even willing to ignore the stupid knowing grin all over Naruto’s face.  The yard was still a total mess, and he watched as the other two boys had to pick their way around all of the pot-holes and uprooted shrubbery.  “I see you managed to survive this long without killing him,” he called out in greeting before he went back to his work. 

“Hey!” Naruto yelled back.  “I resent that!  Stupid teme.  I’m damn well capable enough to take your cousin to lunch.  Geeze, take a chill pill already or something.”

Sasuke didn’t bother to look up.  “I wasn’t talking to you,” he answered.  There was a momentary pause as the two stopped walking and Sasuke risked a glance up out of the corner of his eye.  At first, both of them were frowning, but slowly Harry’s mouth twisted into a smirk before he snorted quietly.  They shared a look, and for once it was just the two of them in on the joke.  Then Naruto started yelling again.  Sasuke devoted only as much attention to his teammate’s rant as it deserved and went back to patiently sanding down the edge of the fresh frame in front of him so that it would slide smoothly and silently.

Harry laughed as he stepped up onto the porch.  “We had a good time,” he said as he sat down by the edge.  “Naruto told me stories about when you guys were younger.”

It was convenient that Harry was angled away from him – he could not see the faint grimace on Sasuke’s face.  Naruto did, however.  And of course, the idiot had to make a big deal out of it by grinning that stupid grin and _winking_.  All of these years and yet the dobe still didn’t understand the meaning of subtle.  “I still say the best one of my pranks was that time, in class, with Iruka-sensei and the super-glue.  You remember?”

“You mean the week we were supposed to be studying the basic construction and tactical uses of explosive tags?”

“Yeah!  Exactly!” Naruto exclaimed happily.

Sasuke shook his head.  Like everything else, Naruto had to take a creative approach to learning.  At the time, it had been anything but entertaining to Sasuke.  He had had more _important_ things to think about than the class idiot.  The ensuing chaos had not only disrupted class for the rest of the day but had also resulted in class being held outdoors for the next week while the mess was cleaned up.  Looking back however, while it still had been stupid and useless, there may have been a certain entertainment factor involved.  It was certainly demonstrative of some of the latter tactics Naruto would develop.  More importantly, it certainly made for a better story than any Sasuke had to share from that time.

Harry shook his head as well with a light laugh.  “Your poor teacher.”

“Hey, his eyebrows grew back!” Naruto replied.  “Oh, come on.  It was hilarious.  You just wish you’d thought of it first.  Haven’t you ever wanted to do something like that to a teacher at least once?”

Harry seemed to stop to think about the question seriously.  His eyes drifted down to stare at the cracked stone steps leading up to the house as his smile slowly faded away.  He flicked a bit of dead twig off of the edge beside him and muttered, “Worse, I guess.”

Sasuke paused in his work and slowly shifted so he could clearly see the other boy.  “I thought this school was important to you,” he said carefully.  Diplomacy certainly was not one of Sasuke’s strong points, but these past few days had clearly drawn his attention to a deficit in his abilities.  So much had changed since the night before and even though he had had the past few hours to work through some of it, there were still far too many variable for him to feel comfortable.  What small comfort there was to be had in the knowledge that his cousin was capable of a form of basic self-defense was lost in the myriad of new worries laid at Sasuke’s feet.  There were few things worse than an unknown opponent.  Furthermore, any hint of a new bloodline would have the vultures circling faster than Sasuke could take them down.  It would certainly draw more attention than the two of them needed at that point.

And that was not even touching the fact that his cousin was clearly still holding back information from them.  The Hokage had been kind enough not to call him on it at the time, but it was obvious to anyone who lived in the profession of lying that there were still things that Harry refused to tell them.  Like the fact that he obviously planned on fighting in this “wizard’s” war and whether or not this had anything to do with his parents deaths.  Sasuke wasn’t so sure any more that his Uncle’s death had been nothing more than a singular incident.  It sounded like this war had been going on for some time.  As for the man responsible being nothing more than a criminal, well, Sasuke was well aware how much one group’s criminal was another’s hero.  And Harry was clearly hiding things.  It made Sasuke’s finger twitch, but he’d already tried shaking the answers out of his cousin and _that_ had gone down so terribly he did not want to think about trying the same tactic again.  Besides, it wasn’t like Sasuke did not understand revenge.  It was a goal Sasuke could whole heartedly agree with – right up until it involved getting his cousin killed.  But as long as he had Harry _here_ …. 

Distance alone ought to keep him safe.  The only problem with that theory was he doubted anything short of brute force would keep his cousin from this school of his.  Harry had fought too hard to keep it a secret for it not to be important.  But if there was something about that place that made Harry unhappy… maybe he could be convinced to consider some alternative, more _local_ options.

“Do you not like your instructors?” Sasuke asked calmly as he set to lining up his tools.

Harry laughed – but it was not exactly a friendly kind of laugh.  It had that kind of sharp bitter edge to it that was meant to cut into something.  It certainly did not fit into the previous conversations and had Sasuke itching to shift into a more defensive position.  “Not exactly,” Harry explained.  “Well, not all of them, I guess.  Hagrid’s great.  He was my first friend, you know?  And he’s always been great to talk to.”

Sasuke wanted to growl to himself.  Yet another complication to add to his list.  Something else to have to work around.  Though hopefully there were not too many of them.  One or two, surely could be easily replaced.  Even if Sasuke had to personally see to providing replacements.  He glanced over at Naruto.  Now would be a bad time for the usually oblivious boy to suddenly demonstrate his sporadic ability to see through people.  Sasuke certainly did not want to have to endure yet another lecture from his teammate about the importance of connections.  But the dobe’s mind was obviously elsewhere.  His smile was still firmly in place, but Sasuke did not miss the slight tightening around the eyes that meant Naruto was _holding_ it in place.

"Iruka-sensei was like that for me,” Naruto agreed.  “He was the first person to ever recognize me, even if I'd sometimes wished he'd notice me a little bit less in class, if you know what I mean."

"What about the rest of your teachers?" Sasuke demanded, wanting to move away from this topic of friends until he came up with a better solution.  The teachers, however, that was an opening he could easily exploit. 

Harry's head jerked up suddenly, and Sasuke could have cursed himself.  Apparently, he needed to control his voice a little better and remind himself about the merits of subtlety.  "Most of them are okay," Harry quickly reassured them. 

Naruto was just as quick to jump to Sasuke's aid.  His grin shifted into something a little more feral. "Most means not all, which means at least one of them really deserves what's coming to them.  Come on, Harry, don't hold out on us. How'd you get back at them? You did get back at them, right?"

It worked like magic.  Harry's shoulders relaxed slowly and he leaned back against the side of the house. Sasuke would owe the dobe a bowl of ramen for this. 

"Oh, yeah,” Harry finally announced.  “You could definitely say that." At Naruto's silent but enthusiastic encouragement, complete with wide eyes and clasped hands, Harry continued.  He leaned forward suddenly, almost conspiratorially, and Sasuke was quick to follow Naruto's lead in leaning in as well.  He was not going to pass up this opportunity to encourage a more forthcoming nature in his cousin.  "The thing is," Harry told them, "there's a position at school, Defense actually, that they say is cursed."

Naruto's head jerked back suddenly. "Cursed?" he yelped. 

Sasuke didn't hesitate. He reached out and smacked his teammate in the back of the head. "Grow up," he hissed.

Naruto ignored him.  "Cursed, as in haunted, as in ghosts?" Naruto asked in his best imitation of a whisper.

Harry blinked slowly. "Eh?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes.  "The idiot is afraid of ghosts," he explained.  What an embarrassment.  One would think that a shinobi of his skill level would have eventually outgrown that ridiculous fear.

But Harry just smiled back. "Don't worry. Most ghosts are quiet nice."

Yes, yes, moving along on to naming names, Sasuke wanted to say.  But then what his cousin was saying fully sunk in. "Excuse me?" he asked carefully.  At worst, he might have expected his cousin to share some of the same childish fears as the dobe.  While regrettable and somewhat annoying, that would have been at least understandable.  "Nice?" Sasuke echoed back.  That was the last word Sasuke would ever used to describe something returning from the dead.  He'd seen enough reanimated bodies to know they were usually disgusting, violent, unnatural things, and whatever “ghosts” that might be reanimating them little better.

Harry eyes widened.  “You don’t have any ghosts?” he asked.

“You do?” Naruto yelped back.  He flailed his arms in emphasis.  It was a sentiment that Sasuke could emphasize with.  What the hell?

Harry blushed and gave a small strangled laugh.  “I just thought, you know…”

“No,” Sasuke snapped.

“None?”

Sasuke shook his head.

Harry’s shoulders slumped.  “Great.  I’m just oversharing all kinds of things, aren’t I?  I just assumed you would too, what with all the sort-of magic you guys do.  I mean, I thought ghost were everywhere.”

“Not here,” Sasuke replied, feeling distinctly grateful for that fact.  How the hell did one fight a ghost?  “Reanimated corpses, maybe.  With a number of distasteful jutsus, and maybe a human sacrifice or two…”

“Eeewwww,” Naruto added eloquently.  He had had enough experiences with some of Orochimaru’s projects to know exactly what Sasuke was referring to, even if he had not had the dubious pleasure of seeing some of them made from up close.

“God, no,” Harry added.  “Nothing like that.  Ghosts just kind of happen.  And they’re a lot like normal people.  Other than the dead part.  And the see through part.  And the cold.  And the whole, not really solid bit.  And they’re kind of forgetful, but come on, they’re dead.  They’re allowed to be forgetful, right?”

Sasuke stared back at his cousin.  “Yes, perfectly normal,” he drawled out.  “I am beginning to seriously question the kind of people you associate with at this school of yours.”

The moment those words came out of his mouth, Sasuke knew it was a mistake.  He didn’t need to see the scowl that immediately appeared on Harry’s face, or to watch as Harry crossed his arms over his chest.  “There’s nothing wrong with the people at my school.” 

And once more, they were back to square one.  Sasuke grimaced and quickly started trying to backtrack.  “That’s not – ”

“Are – are ghost really people?” Naruto interrupted, his voice once more hushed down into what passed as a whisper for him.  He had finally stopped flailing about over this latest revelation, and had instead come to crouch down beside Harry.  Naruto’s eyes were wide, his hands clasped together, as he stared up at Harry as if waiting for great wisdom to pass from him to the dobe’s eagerly waiting empty shell of a head.

Harry’s temper faltered as he turned back to face Naruto.  “What?  Oh!  Um, I would think so.  It certainly wouldn’t be very nice to suggest otherwise, would it?”

Naruto’s eyes widened.  “No!  Oh, no, you’re right.  Definitely wouldn’t wanna say otherwise where they could hear ya.  Might make them mad.”

Harry laughed.  “No, I wouldn’t.  I’ve heard the Bloody Baron can be quite frightening when he wants to.”

“There’s a _Bloody Baron_?” Naruto gasped.

Sasuke scowled.  This was starting to disintegrate into one of Naruto’s little episodes and was not providing the kind of information Sasuke needed at the moment.  “Focus, Dobe,” he hissed as he jabbed the blunt end of one of tools into the blond’s side.

“But he’s _bloody_!”

“So are we on a fairly regular basis,” Sasuke snapped back.  “Really, dobe.  You are getting worked up over a hypothetically bloody ghost at some school halfway around the world in a land that up until recently we’ve never even heard of much less had any reason to be concerned over.  I assure you, your pea-size brain does not need to be wasting any of its precious energy panicking over someone stupid enough to get himself killed!  You are a shinobi! Try acting like one and shut up!”

“Sasuke!” Harry yelled back over him, his voice sharp with disapproval and disappointment in a way that Sasuke had previously only ever heard out of Kakashi-sensei.  No one else had ever dared take that tone with him.  With damn good reason too.  Sasuke’s eyes narrowed. 

Then Naruto giggled.  The blond would have called it a manly chuckle, but it was difficult for Sasuke to perceive it as anything like that.  He watched the other boy flop back down to sit on the grass, a stupid grin on his face and his hiate slightly off-centered.  Naruto laughed lightly, seemingly ignorant of Harry’s obvious anger and Sasuke’s own scowl.  “Yeah,” he said as if replying to some unasked question. “Totally not something to worry about, right?”

Sasuke frowned.  “That’s what I said.”

Naruto just waved his comment off.  “It’s alright, Sasuke.  You don’t have to tell us you’re not scared.  We believe you.”

“That’s not – ” Sasuke’s voice failed him as if someone strangled it to a halt.  Who the hell said anything about _him_ being scared?  The dobe was the idiot about near having a conniption fit at the mere thought.  How the hell had that idiot work it around in that empty head of his that it was _Sasuke_ that was the coward?  “Damn it,” he muttered.  Sasuke did not bother trying to argue back.  There was no point when Naruto had some fool notion like this in his head.  The only way to get it out was to beat it out and Sasuke just fixed the porch, damn it all.  This was not the time or the place to remind Naruto of just how much of an idiot the blond boy really was.

The dobe even had the nerve to grin cheekily back at him, all traces of his earlier fear gone.

Sasuke grounded his teeth together.  “Back to the original topic,” he finally demanded.  Taking a deep breath, he turned back to Harry.  “What was that about your teacher being cursed?”

Apparently, Sasuke was not the only one who was having difficulty following Naruto’s creative approach to logic.  Harry was frowning as he glanced back and forth between the two of them.  “But-” he started before sighing heavily.  “Oh, nevermind.”  He turned back to Sasuke, his features looking much more relaxed, but in a way that might have been simply resigned.  Sasuke could empathize.  When dealing with Naruto, resigned was sometimes the only option.  “It’s not the teachers, really.  It’s the position.  No teacher’s been able to hold the position for more than one year in the pass five.”

Naruto’s eyes lit up.  “Sounds dangerous.”

Sasuke frowned.  “Sounds like a hoax.”  And apparently an effective one, if everyone believed in it.  He could nott help but wonder how many of these teachers had actually left for a legitimate reason and how many of them had simply been scared off.  It was not a bad tactic, if one had the patience to set it up.  Obviously rumors of things like curses and ghost would probably be enough to keep people like Naruto conveniently away…

Harry shrugged.  “If it’s all some elaborate trick, sure seems to be working,” he replied.  “We’re had one teacher possessed, another had a spell back fire and erased all of his memory, another was kidnapped for almost a year, and the last one…” he trailed off before shrugging again and smirking.  “She got what was coming to her, I suspect.”

Naruto stared hard at him for a moment before flinging his arms up into the air.  “Argh!  That face!  I know that face!  You’re not supposed to make that face too!  That’s the face teme makes when he’s reeeaaally done something evil.”

Sasuke scowled at his teammate.  Riling up his cousin was not helpful, and he didn’t exactly appreciate the back-handed slur on his own character.  Harry, however, only laughed.  “I didn’t _do_ anything,” he insisted.  “She’s the one who followed us out into the forest.”

Sasuke laughed, once, in what was more of a quiet huff.  “And you had nothing to do with setting this trap,” he commented with a slight smirk.

Harry’s grin grew.  “Actually, it was all Hermonie’s idea.  I had nothing to do with it.”

Sasuke snorted.

“Really,” Harry insisted.

Naruto laughed.  “Don’t worry, Harry-kun.  We understand.  Totally plausible deniability, right?”

“But I’m telling the truth!”

“You expect us to believe that you honestly had nothing whatsoever to do with the elimination of this woman from her position as your instructor?” Sasuke asked with and one raised eyebrow.

Harry cheeks flushed but he pointedly cocked one eyebrow back before replying.  “There may or may not have been a student club, with the sole purpose of undermining her authority, that I may or may not have been involved in, in a leadership position.”

Naruto crowed in delight as Sasuke sat back, surprised.  He had not expected such clear disobedience out of his cousin.  Sasuke did not know whether to be more alarmed with every new thing his cousin said or to feel a bit relieved that things were not as bad as he feared.  As terrible as possessions, kidnappings and dangerous forests sounded, none of that had actually happened to his cousin.  Sasuke really did not give a damn what happened to the instructors as long as Harry wasn’t involved.  The fact that Harry may or may not have instigated some of it was merely an added bonus.  After all, if he was willing to sabotage one of his instructors, he obvious must be open to the idea of further waywardness.  His cousin seemed more attached to the idea of his school than necessarily the instructors in it.  Which was a very good thing.  Naruto might speak fondly of their old academy sensei, and maybe Kakashi had his uses at times, when he was not busy being a perverted embarrassment to all Konoha shinobi, but Sasuke still had an instinctive distaste for mentor figures.  They tended to interfere with independent thought.  Harry’s nonchalant disregard for his teachers suggested Sasuke did not need to worry about that kind of complication at least.  Which would make things so much easier for Sasuke to influence.

With that warming thought, it was easy to smile and suggest they retire into the backyard and maybe even practice some standard throwing techniques.  After all, training was a great distraction.

 

“You need to straighten out your hand.  It should be held parallel to the ground.  And stop trying to crush the thing.  Loose, remember?  The blade is supposed to slide off of your hand from the momentum of your arm.  Do not fling it.”

From his position sprawled out on the back porch, Naruto watched as Sasuke tried explaining the basics of kunai throwing without using the words baka, useless and goddamnit.  It was clearly a struggle.  In the process of trying to twist around to see what adjustments Sasuke had made to his hand, Harry’s feet slipped out of their proper stance and his whole center of gravity shifted too far to the left.  Despite whatever other skills Sasuke’s cousin may be hiding, his weapon skills were pretty non-existent.  He might clutch that kunai tight enough to let you know he meant business, but when it came to throwing one….he kind of sucked. 

For the twentieth time that afternoon, Sasuke stepped back from his cousin, eyes tracked on each subtle movement of muscle.  A minuscule flinch crossed his face as soon as Harry started to move.  He caught the change in stance but not soon enough to do anything about it.  Harry was already committed as his arm came down and a flash of silver left his hand. 

Harry’s aim wasn’t bad.  Just about every kunai he’d thrown that afternoon had at least hit the target.  While some people might struggle at first with just getting to the target, aim still wasn’t the hardest part of learning to throw.  The hardest part was the timing.  Throw too fast and the handle end, not the tip, would smack into the wooden board.  Throw too slow and you got the exact same result.  The practice board was already riddled with indentations from the heavy end of the kunai slamming into it.  What Harry might lack in timing, he was more than trying to make up for with enthusiasm.  It was a method Naruto fully approved of.  And not just because it made Sasuke’s eyebrow twitch.  Though that too was pretty damn hilarious.  The teme was going to hurt something trying so hard not to say anything sarcastic.

This time, however, the kunai ran out of time for one final rotation.  It collided with the board, not hilt first or along the flat edge, but rather with the tip of the blade sliding down through the wood at a 45º angle – and stuck.  For a second, all three of them waited to see if the blade’s own momentum would rip it free, or if the wood itself would tear under the pressure of holding the weight at such a precarious angle, but nothing changed.

Harry whooped with delight.  He even did a small victory dance, pumping one fist up into the air and grinning from ear to ear.  His whole face looked different like that.  It was almost hard to see the resemblance between the two cousins.  Naruto was pretty sure no one still living had ever seen Sasuke-teme smile like that. 

As it was, Sasuke took a careful step back away from his cousin, as if afraid the good humor might be contagious.  “Do you remember what you did that time?” he asked.

Harry stilled and frowned.  “The same thing I did every other time?”

Sasuke seemed unable to resist rolling his eyes.  “Obviously not.”  He stepped forward again, taking a hold of Harry’s shoulders and re-positioning him once more to face the target with a proper stance.  He’d been doing the same thing all afternoon.  “You are still locking your left knee.  And try releasing a little earlier.  Your timing is getting better.  Try to repeat that, but half a second sooner.”

Harry sighed but nodded.  He seemed to respond well to Sasuke as long as the other boy wasn’t doing his teme routine.  He dutifully pulled out another kunai from the set Sasuke had given him and moved into the position Sasuke had shown him with a look of determination.  He hadn’t complained once about having to repeat this process over and over again, even though Naruto was pretty sure Harry didn’t understand much of it.  Truth be told, Naruto didn’t either.  Iruka-sensei had tried drilling into his head things about angles and momentum and physics, but Naruto learned better through muscle memory than anything else.  Sasuke-teme could probably tell you the exact equation needed to determine any shot, but even he wasn’t trying to bother with that at this stage.  Harry would either learn by practicing or he wouldn’t learn at all.

Though if Harry kept improving at the rate he was, he’d have this down in no time, Naruto was sure of it.  He smiled broadly as he popped another cookie into his mouth and munched cheerfully.  Maybe they could try out some of Harry’s magic spells next.  It’d be fun to see how they held up to some ninjutsu.  And Harry had promised to try teaching him some of it, even if he didn’t think Naurto would be able to learn any of it.  Harry just didn’t know Naruto very well yet.

The promise of a good spar was one of the primary reasons Naruto had followed them home today.  But Sasuke had insisted that kunai training came first since Harry’s education was more important.  Naruto had valiantly managed not to laugh at the serious look on Sasuke face.

Harry had just been moving to gather up his spent kunai once more when his eyes flickered up, distracted by something.  At the same moment, Sasuke stiffened suddenly and reached for his own kunai pouch.  Naruto saw all this out of the corner of his eye, but it had him on his feet before Sasuke could even finish turning to face the east side of the house.  Sasuke sent one kunai flying into the bushes while Naruto hastily pulled out another three to fling after it, fanning them out in the hopes of catching the tail end of anyone trying to escape Sasuke’s attack.  There was the dull thunk of Sasuke’s hitting solid wood, the whoosh of one of Naruto’s falling harmlessly through the leaves, a crack of another bouncing off a branch and finally the clang of metal on metal.

“Harry!” Sasuke hissed, but Harry had already moved to put the tree they’d been using for target practice at his back.  He’d only collected a couple of his kunai but he had one in each hand.  The right one was held loosely, in the proper manner for throwing; the left he had clutched tightly as if prepared to give it up only over his bleeding body.  As Sasuke moved to stand in front of his cousin, Naruto launched himself off of the porch.  His sandals touched the soft grass only for a second before he pushed himself up and off again flying towards the trees.  He pulled on ever battle honed sense he had, searching for even the slightest hint of who and where.  Only to have the perpetrator calmly step out from behind a bush into plain sight.  Naurto curses and rebounded off a tree to land himself back closer to Sasuke.  It was only then that he really got a good look at who it was.

“Your etiquette is severely lacking, Uchiha.  It’s not very polite to accost visitors to your home.”

Neji Hyuuga stared back at them, a look of total boredom on his face and his hands hanging loosing, empty, at his sides.  Whatever he’d used to deflect Naruto’s lucky shot was gone now, hidden once more in the folds of Neji’s normal attire.  He didn’t even have a smudge of dirt on all that pristine white.  It was a terrible color choice for something you were going to fight in, but Neji had given him the weirdest look when Naruto had tried to share this bit of wisdom with his comrade.

Naruto blinked, his arms immediately drooping as he realized their assailant was more of the grumpy neighbor type and less of the evil missing nin variety.  “Um, hey, Neji,” he said, pulling up a shaky grin.  “What’s up?”

It was kind of hard to tell where exactly Neji was looking, but Naruto thought he saw the slightest inclination of his head in Naruto’s direction.

Sasuke, however, was too busy snarling at Neji to notice anything.  “Fuck you, Hyuuga.  It is also not very polite to trespass, spy or kidnap!”

Naruto turned to stare at Sasuke.  That all seemed a bit harsh.  But while Naruto had relaxed immediately at the sight of who it was, Sasuke was still holding his stance.  So was Harry behind him, though Harry looked a lot more confused.  Crap.  This must look terrible to him!  Naruto glanced back at Neji, ready to make the introductions but hesitated.

Neji had his head tilted slightly to the side, one thin eyebrow arched delicately and just the hint of a smirk playing around his mouth.  “You really are unhinged, Uchiha.  Chill, already, would you?”

Naruto blinked, once, slowly, then slapped one hand over his mouth.  He could practically feel the fury radiating off of his teammate, but he didn’t dare turn around.  If he saw the look on Sasuke-teme’s face after Neji told him to _chill_ , he might just die right there on the spot.  As it was, he couldn’t help the (very manly) giggle that escaped out.  Oh, lord, he was going to have to remember this and tease Sasuke about it later.  Maybe when Kakshi-sensei was present.  He’d love it too.  Naruto snorted again and gave it up.  He bent over laughing.  Ah, this was just what he needed! 

“Dobe,” Sasuke hissed.  “Shut.  Up.”

Naruto glanced over at him, smiling brightly.  “Sure, Sasuke.  Whatever you say,” he replied cheekily.

“Is he okay?” Harry whispered to his cousin, edging forward to get a better view.

“No, he is certainly not,” Sasuke snapped back, but he finally moved out of the tense position he’d been holding and stood relaxed.  He didn’t move from his place in front of Harry, however, and didn’t put away the kunai in his hand.

Naruto stayed crouched over, enjoying the way it stretched out his leg muscles after an afternoon spent lounging around.  He watched as Harry carefully glanced over at his cousin before turning to study Neji closely.  Harry didn’t look scared, but he seemed to be very aware of Sasuke’s attitude and was taking cues from it.  “What’s going on?” he finally asked, looking more than a little frustrated as no one moved.

Sasuke’s eyes narrowed.  “We have an unexpected guest, who apparently cannot manage to deduce for himself that attempting to sneak into the home of a ninja clan is an excellent way of finding one’s self liberally perforated.”

Harry stared at Sasuke for moment and Naruto could relate.  Why couldn’t Sasuke call Neji an idiot like a normal person and be done with it?

“One would expect a fellow Konoha nin not to attack his comrades,” Neji returned sharply before cross his arms.  “A little jumpy, are we, Uchiha?”

“I have already had two unwelcome nin in my home in the past 24 hours.  If you would like to join them, be my guest.”

Neji didn’t seem confused or surprised by this news – after all, news traveled fast in a nin village.  “And who is your other guest?” he asked.  “You have yet to introduce us.”

With Sasuke-teme in full scowling mode, Naruto took it upon himself to fix this.  “This is Harry!” he replied brightly.  “Harry, this is Neji Hyuuga.  He graduated from the academy a year ahead of us, but our teams work together sometimes.”

Harry muttered a polite “how do you do,” but still didn’t seem very comfortable.  Standing next to Mr. Doom-and-Gloom, Naruto couldn’t blame him.  “So what brings ya here, Neji?’ Naruto asked.

Was it his imagination or did Neji grimace a little just then?  What, did he not _want_ to be there or something?  If so, why’d he come then?  He clearly didn’t really want to talk to Sasuke as he turned so that he more fully faced Naruto.  “Mere curiosity, only.  After all, it is not everyday that an outside comes to stay at our village, much less in the heart of the Uchiha compound.  Certain people have been talking about it all morning.”

Naruto blinked back at him.  That was weird.  Neji was practically the last person Naruto would expect of listening to village gossip.  It kind of seemed beneath him.  Especially to even mention that that’s where he got his information.

But as if it were even possible, Sasuke’s scowl grew even darker.  “What exactly does your Uncle expect to gain through sending you here to antagonize me?” he demanded.

Neji blinked very slowly.  “I do not know what you are ranting about now, Uchiha,” he said, drawing out each word carefully.  “Though one would hope as an old acquaintance of yours, someone who actually knows you personally, you would not be so suspicious.  Really.  You will make your _guest_ feel uncomfortable.”

Too late, thought Naruto.  But he didn’t say anything flippant.  He might be a little slow on the up take, but he’d managed to figure out that this was Official Clan Business.  Of all the people he knew, only Sasuke and Neji could make anything and everything Official Clan Business. He was convinced neither of them knew how to exist otherwise, though you certainly never saw people like Shikamaru, Chouji and Ino acting nearly as weird.

Something must have changed for Sasuke, however, because he finally slid his kunai back into its holster and crossed his own arms over his chest.  “Fine.  Since you are supposedly _not_ here on orders from your Uncle then you can also _not_ tell your Uncle to mind his own damn business and keep off my property or I will be filing a formal, public complaint, and the Hokage can investigate the matter.”

Neji merely inclined his head once more.

Naruto huffed and crossed his arms too, never one to want to be left out.  “So?  Are we all cool then?” he demanded.

Neji stopped frowning at Sasuke and turned once more back to Naruto.  “Yes,” he said quietly.  “I apologize for interrupting your training session.  Though if you would like any assistance-”

“Get lost, Hyuuga!” Sasuke snapped before pointedly turning his back on Neji and reaching down to retrieve one of Harry’s missing kunai.  “Here,” he told his cousin quietly, pushing it against Harry’s hand.  “We will continue,” he said before tossing one more glare over his shoulder.  “And I meant what I said, Hyuuga, get off my damn property before I remove you myself.”

Neji ignored him, however.  “Perhaps we will see you tomorrow on the training field,” he said to Naruto.

Naruto shrugged.  He didn’t have any plans for training, but that was where he ended up more often than not.  “Guy-sensei insisting on some team training for you?” he asked.

Neji nodded.

Well, he wouldn’t want to interrupt that.  Plus, Guy-sensei was still about one of the most terrifying people Naruto knew.  Teeth just weren’t supposed to be that shinny.  Shaking his head to dislodge the metal image, Naruto gave Neji a grin and a shrug.  “Maybe I’ll try to stop by in the afternoon.  It’d be good to catch up with you and Lee.”

Neji nodded once more before turning away and only then walking calmly back around the house and to the main road.  Naruto watched him go before turning back to his teammate.  Sasuke had managed to keep both himself and Harry busy checking over each blade for any chips or nicks in the metal.  As expected, there didn’t seem to be any.  They were Sasuke’s personal kunai, some of the best made money could buy.  They were designed to put up with a lot more abuse than Harry had managed to dole out yet.

Once Sasuke set Harry back to his practice, Naruto moved over to stand by him.  “That was kind of rude, ya know, teme.  Even if it was stupid clan business, you could have been a little less bastardly.  Neji’s not a bad guy once you get to know him, and he’s great to train with.”

Sasuke’s hands clenched and he shot Naruto a look out of the corner of his eye.  “Would you have had him stay?” he asked in a low tone of voice.

Naruto shrugged.  “Why not.  He was already here.  Maybe he could have helped.”

“And what makes you think he cares about an introduction to kunai?”

Naruto frowned.  “I don’t know, I just thought it’d be polite, you know.  Friendly, and all that.  I mean, he was pretty clear about why he was here even though he didn’t have to be.”

“Which is the only reason I didn’t threaten him further,” Sasuke snapped back before huffing.  “Think, dobe, what did Harry promise to show you this afternoon?”

Naruto brightened immediately.  “Magic!”

“And if Neji had remained?”

“Um…”

“Harry would not be allowed to,” Sasuke explained.  “Or worse, the Hyuuga’s would achieve exactly what they had set out for in having a spy in place to witness specifically what Harry’s skills and weaknesses are.”

“Um,” Naruto replied hesitantly as he rubbed at the back of his head.  “Did you forget that the Hyuuga, ya know, are a part of Konoha too and not evil missing nin out to kill Harry?”

Sasuke hissed at him, and quickly pulled the two of them back a step and lowered his voice even more.  “They do not have to kill Harry to hurt him.”

“But-”

“I do not trust anybody,” Sasuke interrupted.  “No one.  You got that?  Do not leave Harry alone with any of them.  It does not matter whose side they are on, they are all looking for something to steal.”  Naruto opened his mouth but Sasuke cut him off again.  “Yes, yes, I know.  What a thing to say coming from someone from my clan, but trust me, I know how these people think.  No one, Naruto.  No one beyond you, me, Sakura and I guess Kakashi-sensei if we must.”

“You’ve already told me this, teme.”

Sasuke huffed.  “Well, apparently the lesson did not get through enough.  Harry’s abilities are only to be known to us.”

“Still standing here!” Harry called out suddenly.  The two of them turned to find Harry standing facing them, hands now empty.  Behind him the grass was once more littered with misplaced kunai, but the tree behind him now supported two, one once more at a 45º from the ground while the other hung precariously in the opposite position, just barely held in place by how deeply its tip had sliced through the bark.  Harry had a proud grin on his face even as he crossed his arms over his chest and attempted to glare at them.  “Could you _please_ stop talking about me as if I’m not here?

 

Harry bounced the kunai in his hand gently, trying to resettle it in a natural position.  If he thought about it too hard, he tended to try to strangle the weapon, his hand fisted tightly up by the top of the handle.  He was trying to hold it loosely the way he’d been shown, but it was hard to remember to relax without tensing up again.  So he bounced the blade around in his closed hand, trying to get it to lay flat the way it was supposed to, as he eyed up his target.

The poor tree was seriously starting to look haggard.  He almost felt back for it.  He’d probably taken more chunks out of it from the ring of his kunai slamming into it than he had actually sunk the tip in.  The result was that the tree looked a little like it had gone several rounds with a pelt gun.

Nothing for it.  Harry carefully lined up his left foot, bent his knee and pulled his right arm back up about level with the top of his head.  In one movement he brought his arm over and down, shifted his weight from his right to his left leg and opened up his hand.  The blade went sliding smoothly out of his hand, nothing sharp ever coming close to his skin, and made a tight arch for the tree four yards away.

The tip hit sunk in, this time not only as an angle but also off kilter, so that he could actually see the flat of the blade from this direction.

“Damn,” he muttered.  He was pleased to see another one actually stick – his twelfth so far – but he had a feeling that slight sideways bend was not good.  It must have wobbled a lot more coming out of his hand than it had before.

“Can you even see the target?”

Harry turned to find Sasuke standing on the edge of the house porch, watching him.  It wasn’t too far away to talk comfortably, but with the lights on behind Sasuke, Harry couldn’t make out much more of him than his silhouette.  He frowned back.  “I told you my eye sight isn’t that bad,” he snapped back, not sure he liked the implication about his abilities.  Sasuke had seemed very encouraging that morning when he’d been helping Harry first learn.  He’d been frustrate later that afternoon when Harry’s attempts to teach Sasuke and Naruto magic hadn’t worked.  He’d tried to warn them that at the very least they were going to need a wand of their own, but both of them had insisted on trying.  The first part of the afternoon had been kind of fun.  He got to show off some of his better spells to an audience that was entirely entranced.  It had been enough to distract Harry from the way Sasuke’s eyes could turn red at will.  A fact that still creeped him out, no matter how many times the others tried to tell him it was natural for their family.  Red eyes just weren’t natural, and Harry was starting to have some sympathy for the way people had reacted to him in second year when he started talking to snakes.  There were just some things that remained creepy no matter what.

While Sasuke had eventually accepted it gracefully and switched instead to watching Harry even more carefully, Naruto wasn’t so easily deterred.  He’d insisted on trying time and time again until Harry had begun to worry the other boy was going to hurt himself.  If it was possible to implode from trying too hard, Naruto must have been close to it.  He’d done everything from trying to mystically trying to call up mother earth (his idea, not Harry’s) to trying to force his chakra through the same mold.  Neither had worked and both had left Naruto gasping from the effort. 

The last Harry had seen of him he had sprawled out on the floor of what Sasuke called the training room.  The room might not have been the Room of Requirement, but it did give them ample space to move around and try things without worrying about breaking anything or hurting themselves.  Like the rest of the house, it had a slightly eerie feel to it.  Even Sasuke had looked very uncomfortable when they had first entered it.  Why Sasuke insisted on living in a place he obviously did not like very much confused Harry.  It had sort of reminded him of Sirius, which had left him feeling miserable and out of sorts himself.  That was until Naruto managed to trip on one of the floor mats and had Sasuke in a right fit trying to straighten things out again.  The ensuing bickering had borderlined on down right abusive but had managed to stay just shy of that in the realm of amusing.  It was certainly distracting.

They’d split up after that, giving Harry his first bit of free time all day.  Naruto had remained exactly were he’d thrown himself down at, claiming it was nap time.  Sasuke had said something about needing to read some papers Tsunade had sent over and disappeared.  So Harry had done the only thing he could think of.  He scooped up his new kunai off the desk and took himself back outside to try this throwing thing again.  He thought he’d been making some progress, but apparently not.

“Why wouldn’t I be able to see it?” he asked petulantly.

“Because it’s dark,” Sasuke drawled back.

Harry stared at for a moment, then looked off into the distance.  Yeah, it had been getting dark for a while now, but he hadn’t realized just how dark until Sasuke had called his attention to it.  He actually _couldn’t_ see much further than the tree he’d been using as a target, but he didn’t need to share that fact.  “It’s not that dark,” he argued.

“You can barely see me.”

“I can still see the tree and that’s all that matters, right?”

Sasuke sighed and shook his head.  “Don’t blame me if you have a headache later.  Naruto went out to get dinner,” he said before disappearing back into the house once more.

Harry rolled his eyes and went to fetch his kunai once more.  If he had a little trouble finding the third one it was only because it was hidden by some leaves and had nothing to do with the light.  He made it a point to throw the set at least two more times before thinking about heading inside.  As peaceful and quiet as it was out here, and as much as he really enjoyed having an evening to himself without his Aunt calling at him for chores or his Uncle hovering in the background waiting for him to make a mistake, he was kind of hungry.  And a little bored.  Maybe he could talk Naruto into telling him more stories about Sasuke, since he couldn’t get anything directly out of the source.

It was as he was gathering up his kunai for the last time that night that Harry felt something almost slither down his back.  It felt like ice water dripping down the back of his shirt, and his hands tightened.  It felt _familiar._   His hands had just started to shake when the quiet night was disturbed by the sharp crack of multiple people Apparating into the same place at the same time.

Harry spun around to face the house.  The lights from within blazed in the early evening night.  He couldn’t see any sign of who was in the house, but there, on the porch, moving towards the door, were two dark cloaked figures and a flash of a white porcelain mask.

“Harry?” Sasuke’s voice called from within.

“No!” Harry screamed.  He didn’t think.  He simply threw the first thing that came to hand, then quickly threw the next three.  None of them actually hit anything as far as he could tell, but they sent the robed figures dashing to duck out of the way.  The only problem was, now Harry had nothing left to throw.

“Harry!” Sasuke yelled back.  Something crashed from within and Harry knew there wasn’t time to think about it.

He pulled out his wand and sent a curse flying at the one nearest to the door.  It lit up the night in a flare of dark red before slamming his target into the wall.  The other figure turned just as three more came running from around the front of the house.  “Hey!” Harry yelled.  “Over here!” And then he ducked and ran.  The first curse slammed into his poor abused tree and put it out of its misery.  Bits of bark went flying and thudded against his back as he ducked around a clump of bushes and half ran, half slid down a steep embankment.  He knew his rather shaky plan was working when another flash of red sped just over his head and he heard several voices shouting out in English.

Totally not bad guy ninja, or those ANBU guys, or any other weird acquaintances of Sasuke’s.  These _were_ wizards.  These were Death Eaters.  And somehow they’d followed him here and if he didn’t do something clever quickly he might very well loose the one bit of family that actually seemed to want him.

Harry stumbled down out onto another road and suddenly found himself in the open once more.  There were voices shouting up the hill above him, but he was more concerned with the body that suddenly appeared next to him.  Even before the swirl of black robes could finish forming, Harry had his wand out and twisted around to face him.  He yelled out the first curse that came to mind, and was gratified to see the figure knocked clear off his feet by a simple _Expelliarmus._   He followed it up swiftly with a _Petrificus Totalus_.Something slammed into him from behind, however, catching him on the shoulder and knocking him down to his knees.  It felt like his cousin had tried to pull his arm off, but the limb still worked so it couldn’t be too bad.  Harry curled his body around, trying to keep low and small as he redirected his wand back behind him and shouted “ _Confringo!”_ hoping the larger blast would be big enough to slow down whoever was following him and silently thanking Hermonie for reading so many books and always sharing the best spells she learned with him and Ron.

He pushed himself up to his feet, his tennis shoes sliding on the gravel and damp soil beneath him.  He glanced only once over his shoulder.  His blast had taken out at least one tree, it looked like, and had left a small fire to devour what was left.  There was the lump of a body nearby, while another was struggling back up to his feet not too far away. Further up the hill, he could just barely make out the flash of light as three more came rushing down the hill.  That made six total with him.  Was that all of them?  Had any of them stayed behind?  There was no reason to, right?  They were after Harry, so they wouldn’t waste their time attacking his cousin, would they?  Sasuke might be a great fighter, and he may have seen Harry do a few parlor tricks, but he’d never even seen a wizard’s duel before!

Please, Harry thought.  Please be let this be all of them.

And then he turned and dashed back into the cover of the woods.  They either would or would not follow him.  The best he could do at the moment was to lead them as far away from Sasuke as possible.

 

There was the sharp bite of something electric in the air.  It made Sasuke look up from the tea he had been preparing.  He had the sudden feeling of something pushing down on him, like a great invisible force trying to squeeze him out of existence.  It left him gasping and clutching the tea pot handle so tightly that it cracked under the pressure.  It…did not make any sense.  He had felt fine just a moment before, no sign of any illness, no recent injury that might have suddenly worsened.  He and Harry were the only ones on the grounds at the moment.  Naruto had been sent out with strict instructions to bring back something to eat other than ramen and that there ought to be vegetables involved.  He was due back at any moment.  But other than the three of them, there should not have been any one else within a quarter of a mile.

And then just as suddenly the pressure was gone and Sasuke was left staring down at the pot in his hands and wondering if perhaps he was starting to finally lose it.  Was sudden claustrophobia a symptom of stress disorder?  He did not think so.  But he felt as if something had just passed over him.  Like a ghost almost.  He would have snorted at the thought if something had not still felt – off.

“Harry?” he called out, suddenly, irrationally, needing to hear his cousin.  Even if the other boy complained about him hovering or gave him that look like he had somehow not only missed the whole point of something but had managed to fail at it spectacularly in the meantime. 

And then there was the worse sound in the world.  Harry screamed. 

“Harry!” he yelled back, dropping everything in his hands and moving.  And while part of Sasuke noted that it was a yell of anger and maybe a little fear and not a scream of pain, the rest of him was more focused on getting out of this thrice damned room as quickly as possible and to his cousin’s side.  This could not be happening.  Not _again_.  That settled it.  He was going to find a vault, buried safely somewhere secret, and lock his cousin up there, where absolutely nothing could get at the other boy.  Because goddamn it, not even Naruto could get into this much trouble in three days.

There was another shout, this time a voice he did _not_ recognize, and then something large slammed into one of the outside walls.  Sasuke flipped a kunai out into his hand as he shoulder his way through the door.  His momentum carried him across the porch in a roll before he was up and slashing out.  He took only a moment to confirm that the body slumped against the wall was not Harry before flicking the kunai in his hand up and across.  Blood arched out across the back porch and sprayed his hand.  Still crouched down on one knee, Sasuke pivoted his body around, sharingan blazing and trying to find his cousin in the failing light.

There was no familiar figure out there, only a loose collection of strangers in long black robes with their backs to him.  Even as his eyes darted back and forth hoping for some sign of his cousin, another part of him was counting each of the strangers, sizing them up based on weight and height, and calculating which target to start with in order to kill them all as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Something in his gut tightened sharply.  There was no sign of Harry, just a mob of intruders.  But if they were still here, then they could not have taken Harry with them.  And since they were far too preoccupied with something beyond his range of vision, he could only hope that Harry was still moving. 

Sasuke did not hesitate any further.  He sent his bloodied kunai flying at the nearest one and reached for two more.  His kunai found its target, sinking deep into the man’s back.  Anatomically speaking, it was not a great hit, but it was enough to send the man topping to the ground and to give Sasuke just the barest glimpse of what laid beyond.  Through the dark and the trees it was hard to see exactly what was happening, but it was clear they were giving chase to something and there was only one thing here worth chasing.

Sasuke snarled as he started to pull his arms around again to send a fresh volley of kunai to scatter his opponents when something flashed off to his right.  He saw it fast enough to try ducking to the side but even at his best, in such closed quarters, it was hard to be faster than light.  Whatever it was smashed into the railing beside him.  The wood took the brunt of the force, but even it could not stop the sudden flare that accompanied it.  Sasuke cursed as he felt his left arm catch fire.  He dropped the kunai in that hand and curled his body in before flinging his legs back and over his head, pulling the rest of his body back off the porch and into the grass with a roll that scraped at already burnt flesh but also hastily smothered the flames.  For a moment he was safely hidden behind the raised platform of the back porch before another flash of red and it too exploded.  Clearly, staying in one place was not an option as Sasuke dived out of the way and was forced out into the open space of the back yard.

“Hit him, Barnes!” one of the men shouted out.

“Shite!  He’s fast!”

They were both speaking English.  Sasuke’s breathing quickened even further.  They spoke Harry’s language.  Sasuke had never even heard of English before needing to learn the basic of it for this mission.  The chances of other nin being familiar with it enough to use it in battle were fairly nonexistent.  The only logical explanation was that they were not nin.  That they had followed Harry here.  And they sure as hell were not here to help.  Harry had said there was a war going on and that it had reached his beloved school.  He had never said a damn thing about why a dozen men would track him halfway around the world with violence in mind.  That was a small army by nin standards – and if they all fought like these two, he suspected that held true for these wizards too.  He cursed his cousin even as he pushed himself to move faster.  Forget a secured vault.  If this was anything to go by, Sasuke was going to need to put together his _own_ army just to keep his ridiculous cousin alive.  If he had known ahead of time that _this_ might happen, he already would have.

It was less crowded back here now, which really, was not a good thing.  For while Sasuke only had the two men in front of him to deal with, that meant the other ten he had seen were off chasing down his cousin.  There was no time.  He flicked out the kunai in his hand before darting low and fast farther down the yard and toward the tree line.  The first flash was too slow to catch him, but the next was aimed in front of him and he had to jerk his body to the side to avoid it.  Even then, it felt like something trying to pull him in – like it was pulling the very chakra out of him.  His eyes widened even as he jumped back away from it.  But the flash of light disappeared as soon as it impacted the ground, seemingly made up nothing more harmful than thin air. 

Jutsus did not do that.  It took time, even if it was only a moment, to shape them properly.  And once they were shaped, they kept their shape.  They became real substantial things that one could predict and manipulate.  These flashes of light came nearly as fast as thought, and all of Sasuke’s training in physical hand-to-hand combat was the only thing keeping him from finding out exactly what one of those flashed of light would do to him and his chakra system.  He scowled as he skidded to a halt, pushed back away from the woods and leaving himself still in the wide open yard.  This was not working.  He had already wasted too much time with these idiots, and while he was confident he could catch them eventually, their attack patterns were going to draw this match out.  He did not have the same speed they did at long range assaults.  He could dodge faster, but he could not dodge and retaliate faster.  Given time to wear them down a little, or to pick an opening, he could shift the battle to short range attacks and probably end this whole debacle in a matter of seconds.  But waiting for that opportunity was wasting too much valuable time.  Harry was out there, alone, with five times as many of these men after him.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.  He was just fortunate that he still actually carried smoke bombs on his person.  They were not a tool he liked to use, and one he generally avoided.  They seemed like a lazy man’s tool to him, something nin who could not do better had to fall back on to hide themselves.  And he did not like the way they cut down on his range of vision.  But they were still a basic nin tool, and like any other good soldier, Sasuke kept the basics on his person at all times.

In one smooth move that took his hand up and across his body, he had his fingers in and out of a pocket, one tiny little capsule held loosely between them and a kunai in the other hand.  Another flash of light was heading straight for him.  He crushed the capsule in one hand even as he tried to pull both arms up to defend himself.  He still took the blow to the chest.  It felt like firm kick to the solar plexus and send him flying backwards.  The air whooshed out of him even before his body came slamming back down to the ground, bouncing once off the soft loam of the yard.  He was already reacting, however, before that first bounce was even complete.  Years of practice had trained certain moves into his muscles, and as his body rebounded off the ground, he was already pushing himself off in a jackknife maneuver designed to get him back up and on his feet.  Learning how to take a hit and recover quickly from it was one of the first things they taught in the academy and it was one that all young shinobi unfortunately got a lot of practice at early in their careers.  Get back up on your feet.  No matter what.

He had only a moment to take advantage of the cover he had created.  So Sasuke did the logical, strategic option.  He took advantage of the smoke plume and sprinted for the tree line.  Once he was close enough, he sprung up onto the lowest branch.  His feet barely touched it before he shoved himself off.  The other intruders had a good ninety second head start on him.  At the rate they were moving, he could make up that time quickly.  What the hell he was going to do when he got there, he was not sure.  He could physically block any attacks headed for his cousin, but that was only going to work for so long. 

Assuming he was not already too late.

The first sign of a struggle came not far from the house, on the sharp downward slope of the hillside behind it.  One tree was down, another serious damaged and the fire was still burning.  Passing over it, Sasuke could make out a body on the edge of the flames, its legs already on fire.  A few feet away another body stumbled in the dark, limping and seemingly disoriented.  Black cloak, white mask, far too tall to be his cousin.  Sasuke took care of that little problem quickly and efficiently.  He dropped down out of the tree, feet first, and slammed into the man’s shoulders, riding him down to the ground.  Once they made impact, Sasuke rammed the kunai in his hand deep into the back of the man’s neck, before yanking it free, and pushing himself up off of the body and back into the trees.

His hands were slippery with blood again, but at least he knew for a fact that there was one less enemy to worry about.  If Tsunade wanted live ones, she would have to settle for the two Sasuke had already left behind.  Interrogators really only needed one prisoner, anyway.  Anything more would be overkill.

There was a sudden loud clap, like a thunderstorm directly overhead except the ground did not just shake with it, but seemed to almost roll away from the sound.  Sasuke did not let it slow him down.  Up in the trees, the affect was not as bad.  Trees tended to sway and move already, and Sasuke was used to their general patterns.  Another couple of yards and he was to the access road that ran behind the main house and connected the east side of the Uchiha compound with the west side. 

Down here was where the small stream that lead to the lake passed, the incline feeding naturally into it.  There were shoe prints on both sides, some smeared in the mud, others deep as if the very ground did not want to give them up.  Harry’s tennis shoes had a distinct pattern to them, unlike those Sasuke had seen before, and he could clearly make out one imprint that was definitely Harrry’s.  So he was still on his feet when he passed through here.

Sasuke did not quite know what to think of the sudden addition of what looked like marble growing out of the cattails along the river bed.  Or whatever the hell that vine was that tried to _grab_ him.  It certainly had not been there yesterday when he had inspected the grounds and it was first on his list of things to remove later.  After he killed some people, rescued his cousin, and hid the other boy in a bunker, that was.

Judging by the angle of the tracks, Harry and those following him had headed east.  It was not long before the small wooded area behind his house thinned out once more to a side street of smaller houses.  It was also here that he caught up to the first of his targets.  A straggler by the looks of him, but it was a good sign that he was on the right track.  The man was distracted, simultaneously trying to put out the fire on his sleeve while still jogging awkwardly down the road.  It should have been a simple matter to take him down without slowing Sasuke at all.  Except luck had never been on Sasuke’s side the way it was for Naruto.  Just as Sasuke was pulling out his next set of kunai, the man in front of him stumbled to a stop, still beating furiously at his arm, and turned just enough to see Sasuke.  It never would have happened if Sasuke had taken more care.  Kakashi would have something sarcastic and biting to say about Sasuke leaving himself out in the open like that.  But when it came down to stealth or speed, the latter had seemed more important.  He could still fix this, however.

Sasuke whipped his arm around, kunai sliding smoothly out of his hand just the way he had been trying to show Harry, and flying swift and steady towards the heart of his target.  Even caught off guard and in a rush, his aim was true.  But he could not stop his opponent from reacting.  The man’s eyes widened behind his plain, shapeless, white mask, before he flicked his arm out to the side.  Suddenly what should have been a killing hit was sent careening sharply off course.  His kunai clattered harmless against a nearby wall and Sasuke was forced to pull himself to a stop only yards away. 

Sasuke cursed and flicked another kunai at his target.  Maybe it had been a fluke.  Unlikely, since he did not make mistakes like that, but he also had not had a good look at exactly what his target had done to avoid his attack so easily.  But even seeing the same move repeated, Sasuke still was not sure _how_ the other man was doing it.  The man had a wand just like Harry, and like Harry, seemed dependent on manipulating it in order to produce a result.  The word he shouted out at the same time was foreign to Sasuke, and of no help.  The greater problem, however, was that even the sharingan was proving useless.  Harry had said it was something like chakra, but not the same thing.  It certainly did not seem to work the same way.

Sasuke cursed again, and gave up on trying to understand it.  If the man was dead, he would no longer be a threat either way.  He pulled his hands together and began to form one of his more powerful fire jutsus.  He would burn this nuisance until the man was little more than an ugly smear on the road.

He was just about to release the energy he had gathered when the man shouted something else, something different, but still very familiar.  Harry had said the same thing once.  He said it was the name of a spell to cause multiple explosions, designed to inflict damage over a large area.  Sasuke had less than a moment to make a choice.  He knew his jutsus inside and out, and none more so than his family’s specialty.  He had complete faith in their ability to destroy a target.  But the unknown was always more dangerous than the known.

There was no time.  He could not waste any more here. 

He held his ground and let his jutsu escape through his fingers with a deep breath and a flow of chakra up and out of his body.  He exhaled just as there was a flash and bang of light.  His jutsu flared to life, taking shape and form and surging down the narrow street in a gust of hungry fire.  It ought to protect him from anything as equally powerful or less, except perhaps from a water element.  Sasuke had always been confident in his own abilities, but any ninja worth their hitate was also always ready for the unexpected.  Any ninja that had ever met Naruto knew to _expect_ the unexpected.  So he could not say he was surprised when that flash of light cut through his jutsu like a hot knife through flesh.  Sasuke threw up one arm to protect his face and started to curl his body in and downward to try to avoid as much of it as possible.  They looked like fireworks flashing in the dark and headed straight for him, except where fireworks depended on explosive powder packed tightly within flammable canisters, this had no substance, had no form, had nothing that he could try to knock aside or burn up prematurely.

One of these maddening, flashing balls of light slammed into his left shoulder like a lead ball, only to suddenly flare up in a burst of red and purple tinged flames.  Instead of smoldering away at his shirt like a normal spark would, these flames seemed to feed upon themselves and rose up instantaneously.  His shirt was made of tougher material than that and should not have burned so easily.  Sasuke immediately jerked his head to the side as he felt skin heat and tighten.  There was already the bitter tang smell of burning hair.  He swiped his hand up and tried to smoother the flames.  It was a crude, but effective manner of putting out any flame.  Without oxygen, there could be no fire.  Deny a fire air and it dies.  Patting it out with your hand would result in painful burns, but nothing debilitating.  It was not often that Sasuke had his own element turned against him effectively, but even he had had to put out a few fires in his time and he was more than familiar with the different levels of burns.  It should have been a simple thing.

Except the fire would not go out.  No matter how firmly he covered them, the flames just rose up over his hand to burn the top of it. He hissed. The fire was still reaching for his face, blinding him on one side. He heard someone shout something nearby and knew he was out of time. He grabbed the top of his collar and with a sharp jerk tore what was left of the material, ripping the entire sleeve and shoulder off of his shirt and flinging it away from the rest of his body. He ducked in the opposite direction immediately afterward.

The spot he had been standing in exploded into a shower of packed dirt and rock.

“You filthy bastard!” a man screeched in English. “My arm!”

His opponent was still standing as well, though apparently he had fared worse in the face of Sasuke's attack. His left shoulder was a mess of burnt fabric and burnt flesh.  It ran from his shoulder all the way down his arm and passed his elbow.  Parts of it were blackened, but most of it was an angry vivid red and soaked till it was dripping wet. The fact that he was still standing was impressive, but Sasuke had known as soon as that flash of light had sliced through his own jutsu that it was not going to hit its target with the force it should have.  It had lost too much energy and shape.

The man's face was a snarl of rage, no sense of control or cunning at all.  He flung out his good arm, his stick of wood clasped tightly, and started to snarl out something Sasuke did not bother to try to understand.  He was already dropping his body down low and flinging himself into a sloppy sideward roll.  It left him off balance but those crucial few feet away from where he had been and the bright green flash of light that slammed into the ground.  It did not shatter the earth the way Sasuke had expected, the way every other thing he had had thrown at him so far would have.  This time, instead, it seemed to almost try to ricochet off of the dirt road, burning a dark streak of black across brown earth.  It sent a wind kicking up, flinging dirt in Sasuke's face as it brushed over him.  It almost hurt - as if a feeling could have an echo and that echo was something like the sensation of someone dragging a coarse file across his skin.

Too close.

Whatever that was, it was far too close.  He could not afford to find out what exactly it did.  And without knowing what it was, there would be no countering it.  Sasuke hissed and darted for better cover. 

The man cackled, the sound breaking off into whimpering momentarily before starting back up again.  "Come back here, you disgusting little rat! I'll show you what real power is!"  The man snarled something else and the corner of the building behind Sasuke _im_ ploded.  It crumpled as if some giant fist had crushed it like an old tin can.  Sasuke watched it all with wide eyes, taking in every detail and grateful his opponent seemed not only to be a bad shot but also too stupid to figure out _which_ building Sasuke had ducked behind. 

It would not take him long, however, to destroy everything in the immediate area if he kept it up like that.  It was too easy for his opponent to keep him pinned down at a distance.  He needed to get closer.  Going around the buildings between them would take too much time, and going over would leave Sasuke too exposed.  So he took the next option – through.  Sasuke scrambled down the length of wall until he found a boarded up window.  Hopping up lightly, he grabbed the low hanging edge of the roof and pulled himself up before kicking out sharply with both feet at the thin beam of wood holding the shutters closed.  With a crack that was lost in yet another explosion down the street, the wood gave way and Sasuke slipped silently into a mausoleum. 

Like all of the other buildings that had once housed the great Uchiha clan, this one had lain completely dormant and abandoned since that day.  The land technically all belonged to Sasuke now, and no one had been brave enough to try to reclaim it.  Some nameless grunt long ago had been charged by the Hokage with securing the grounds.  The bodies, of course, had all been given their proper last rites.  The blood had been politely washed away.  And each door and window had been shut up tight, as if it mattered any more trying to keep the outside world away.

The room stank of dust and mildew, with the faint hint of something dead rotting.  His sandals left foot prints in the grime on the floor as he ghosted from the room’s window to the door.  Judging by the bed, desk and personal items strewn about, he was obviously in one of the bedrooms.  Sliding the door back silently he found a short hallway, with the kitchen visible at the far end.  The front door was in between, but that would lead him straight back out in front of the target he was trying to get behind.  He passed it by with barely a glance, but noted the way the door frame shook slightly and the flash of light visible from beyond.  The foreigner was still blindly pelting the street with explosions, it seemed.  That would not last forever.  Eventually even an idiot like that would figure out that Sasuke was not retaliating in any way and would stop to think.  Sasuke needed to be behind him before that point.

Except the windows in the kitchen were small, and difficult to get through.  He could manage it, but it would not be graceful and would cost him time.  Standing in this corner of the house, he was only feet away from the source of his current problem.  He could hear the man muttering to himself in between shouted code words.  Sasuke kept his own mouth firmly shut as he drifted soundlessly into the next room down.  Whichever distant cousins that had once resided there must have been using it as a recreation room.  There was a low table in the middle, and cushions spread out around it.  Someone’s half-read book was splayed out in the middle of the floor with a tea cup still sitting beside it.  Sasuke stepped around both, and everything else that littered the floor, until he reached the most important thing – the wide window running along the opposite side.  It rattled painfully as he slid it back, but he had no other option.  Committed, he did not waste any time cringing over the noise, or waiting to see if it had been noticed.  He dropped out on the other side, his hands already coming together in the first seal.

 

Harry flinched as another bone shattering curse zipped by his head.  He could almost swear he felt the heat of it passing him by before it crashed into the wall behind him.  Bits of plaster and wood splinters exploded out and he had to screw his eyes shut and turn his head away.  As it was, he could feel the sharp pieces tear through the skin around his neck and ear.  He hunched his shoulders forward, trying to duck down, even as he braced himself against the wall.  With a flick of his wrist he brought the tip of his wand up and hissed out a quick spell.  It knocked the Death Eater closest to him off his feet but it wouldn't be enough to keep the man down for long.

Pushing off of the building behind him, Harry darted to the right.  He was already jerking his body to the left when another Death Eater sent a different spell flying towards him.  It missed, just barely, but Harry didn't have time to congratulate himself on good instincts.  He was already darting out from behind one building, searching wildly for his next place to hide.

This game of cat and mouse had been going on for what seemed like hours.  There was just too many of them.  Harry couldn't get a moment long enough to cast a proper spell before one or more of them were flinging hexes and curses his way.  He knew there was at least six of them and each one of them seemed absolutely determined not to let him out of their sights.  Even worse, ever time he _did_ manage to take one of them down, another was there with the counter-curse or charm that had their comrade right back up on his feet again and flinging nasty hexes straight at Harry.

It was only a matter of time before one of them caught him.  It was amazing that they hadn’t already.  Harry had no illusions about his chances here.  After all, what was one half trained wizard teenager against six or more hardened criminals, with probably two decades of experience on him?  They probably knew more dark curses than he did simple charms.  The only reason he wasn’t dead yet was because of luck.  That, and they _really_ did have terrible aim.

Another stray shot took out the tree behind Harry, engulfing it in green fire.  It was a good five feet away from the bush Harry had ducked behind, but the sudden heat and the biting electric edge to it was enough to send him scrambling out from his limited cover and back out into the street.

“ _Reducto_!” someone shouted out from a distance.

Harry didn’t even have to think about it.  His wand was already moving up to flick out the best defensive spell he knew.  It held up as a splash of red crashed into it, tendrils of light spreading out as the curse tried to find it’s way around the invisible barrier.  Harry jerked his arm down and to the right, flinging the excess power off away from him.  The one benefit to being out in the open like this was it also made it easier for him to spot his opponents.  “ _Epoximise!”_ he shouted out before swiftly following it up with a barked “ _Langlock_.”  For a moment there was blessed silence as the two simple hexes not only glued his opponent in place but silenced him.

And then there was movement out of the corner of his eye and Harry was ducking down.  “ _Impedimenta!_ ” he shouted out at the same time another voice roared, “ _Expulso!_ ”

Harry hadn’t been fast enough, but the disruption of his spell was enough to send the Death Eater’s curse flying over his shoulder.  It sailed up into the sky, straining, floundering for a new target.  Red lightening flashed overhead as the spell finally lost its shape and split apart.  A crimson glow filled the street, and for a moment Harry could see clearly in the dark.  He paused for the first time since his mad dash had begun.  Thankfully they were still inside the part of town that seemed totally deserted of life.  Empty houses stood silently on every side, their dark windows empty, their doors sealed shut.  There were no cars, no carts, not even a bicycle parked out front to suggest that life once might have continued normally here.  There was no one to get hurt, no one to die.  Just Harry.  And a bunch of frustrated, dangerous dark wizards. 

For this one brief moment he could see them clearly, dark shadows in the night, swaths of black highlighted only by the stark white of their masks.  They were regrouping.  He could see them moving to slip around until their number was spread out on either side of him.  There were simply too many of them.  He was grossly out numbered.  It was terrifying.  If he stopped to think about it any longer than that one brief instant, he probably would have just given up and accepted the inevitable.

But despite everything – this also felt very, very familiar.  How many times had it been now that he stood like this?  Alone, in the dark, with a ring of Death Eaters slowly appearing around him?  He tried not to think too much about the first time.  It was easier than it probably should have been, since the night Cedric died was really little more than one, long, painful blurr to him.  Too much had happen, too quickly, for him to truly remember it in any great detail.  Shock, he supposed, and real, physical pain, and the mind-numbing helplessness of being sounded by Death Eaters and utterly defenseless.

At least he’d had a fighting chance at the Ministry.  At least no one had tied him up there, or taken his wand away from.  And he hadn’t had to face the monster himself head on.  But that night had its own terrors, some that he tried not to think about too much either.  But one of the worst had been _knowing_ that he’d led his friends into that mess.  He never should have let the others come with him.  He should have found a way to stop them.  And the best he’d been able to do at the time was led the Death Eaters away until it was just him, alone once more, surrounded by people who wanted nothing more than for him to be dead.

And here he was again.  He ought to be just as terrified.  But he had his wand pulsing warmly in one hand and nothing and no one close enough to him to get hurt in the cross-fire.  He should be panicking.  But it was just as easy to be furious. 

_How dare they._   How dare they follow him here.  It was bad enough they put all of his other friends and classmates at risk.  Bad enough he had to cower in that stifling house on Privet Drive and have to worry constantly about endangering the lives of people he didn’t even like.  How dare they follow him here, to the one place Harry might have a chance of not being the boy-who-lived and might actually get to have a family.  Granted, this place probably wasn’t _much_ safer than Hogwarts was.  There was that horrible man with the red eyes trying to kill him, Sasuke and his murdered family and his secrets, and all of the other creepy, dangerous people that seemed to fill this nice, quiet, little village.  There was no reason for Harry to feel safe here, and he was starting to understand _why_ his cousin was such a paranoid jerk sometimes.  But that was all the more reason why Harry was not going to let this happen.  He was not going to add to that.

And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let them hurt Sasuke.  They’d taken too much from him already.

Harry stepped back carefully, trying to keep as many of them in his sight as possible and kept his feet spread out for balance.  No more running this time.  They were far enough away now from everyone else.  He might not know as many nasty curses as they did, but he’d spent the last year teaching every clever trick he could come up with to a group of his classmates.  If there was one thing Harry knew, it was how to think on his feet.  He’d had lots of experience, after all.  And a little desperation went a long way. 

If nothing else, he had one distinct tactical advantage – he didn’t have to aim.  Completely alone, outnumbered and surrounded, he didn’t have to worry about _what_ he hit, just as long as he hit as many of them as possible.  Raising his wand, Harry took one last deep breath and let loose. 

“ _Reducto!_ ” he yelled as he thrust his wand out towards the group of men in front of him.  He yanked his wand back up as soon as the spell left it, and slashed it back down once more, repeating the same spell again and again.  It was hard to control, and the force of it kept making him want to jerk back away from the destructive power.  He couldn’t be sure if he actually hit anyone.  But it accomplished his main goal as the tail end of it clipped the dirt road and ricocheted up in a cloud of dust that filled up half the street.  He quickly dropped into a crouch, hoping anything they shot back would go over his head.  He was already pulling his arm back and extending it to the right.  ” _Impedimenta!_ ” he shouted out for what seemed like the hundredth time that night.  The Death Eater trying to box him in from that side flew backwards with a crash into the building behind him.  Harry didn’t hesitate to snake his arm back around to the left and gasped out a “ _Stupefy!”_ without even looking.  If there was nothing there, the simple little spell wouldn’t hurt the abandoned buildings on this street.  If there was yet another Death Eater to match the one on his right, then he’d bought himself a little more time. 

Something sharp and cold whizzed by his left ear and his body jerked to the right as he tried to avoid it.  He scrambled on his knees, trying to get turned around but afraid to stand up.  This time something sharp and cold ripped through his left sleeve and a gush of searingly hot blood ran down his arm only to instantly freeze.  His whole arm felt numb in an instant and his heart leapt.  What if it spread?  What if his whole body went cold and numb like that?  Would his heart stop?  His right arm was still working at the moment, however, and he jabbed his wand in the right direction.  “ _Calamus!_ ” he yelped back.

Harry tried to scramble backwards.  His arm felt like a dead weight at his side and his stupid sneakers kept slipping out from underneath him.  He got to his feet and shouted out another stunning spell into the dark, hoping for a little luck.  The smoke and dust from his earlier spells were starting to fill the whole street now, making it hard to breath and nearly impossible to see.  But Harry had played plenty of Quidditch through thick fog and even at night.  He knew you didn’t always have to be able to _see_ a person to know they were there.  Even still, he didn’t notice the man behind him until the last moment.  A shuffling of feet, the whisper of a wand flick and the faint tingle of magic build-up was the only warning he had, and it wasn’t going to be enough to get himself turned around in time to face his opponent, much less fire off a counter curse.  Even the best of luck had to run out eventually, he supposed.  He hadn’t expected any better. 

He also wasn’t expecting the _third_ body, which slammed into the Death Eater and brought the two of them crashing into Harry.  The impact jammed his right shoulder something awful and the pain seemed to rip across his body as if the entire arm had been pulled clean off.  Then the three of them hit the ground – with Harry on the bottom.  His lungs emptied in a whoosh that left him stunned, but he managed to keep from bouncing his head off the ground.  That didn’t stop the elbow of somebody on top from slamming into his temple.  The shock of that sent him gasping air back into his poor stunned lungs. 

Having two people fall on him hurt a lot more than he would have thought.  Everything hurt, and he hoped to god that he hadn’t broken anything.  Even more frightening, however, was the way his left arm didn’t hurt _at all_.  In fact, he couldn’t really feel much of anything from it.  He had the wild urge to grab at it, to check that it was in fact still there and still attached to him.  But his good arm was kind of preoccupied being pinned down by someone’s chest.

“You alright there, Harry?” someone asked from above him.  There was a shifting of bodies on top of him before a mop of bright blond hair peeked out over the top and Naruto’s face peered down at him with a curious tilt and a playful smile.

“Get. Off!” Harry grounded out between gritted teeth.  The body between them was as still as death, but it still weighed a ton and every time Naruto so much as shifted an inch, it sent that weight crushing down on Harry in new and even more painful ways.

“Oh, right,” Naruto exclaimed before lithely jumping back.  The force of him moving wrung another grunt out of Harry, but it wasn’t long after that before the body on top of him was yanked back as well, and suddenly Harry could breathe again!  Sweet, sweet oxygen with no elbows pressing down on his throat or knees jabbing him in the gut.  Harry sucked in a couple blessed lungfulls as Naruto blithely dropped the body to one side.  Harry didn’t see any blood, so he wasn’t sure if the Death Eater was alive or dead.  If the man did wake up from all of this, he was certainly going to have some interesting bruises. 

Harry didn’t have long to consider which alternative he would prefer.  Naruto was already bending down and grabbing him by his arms and yanking him up to his feet.  The good news was that Harry could feel the heat of Naruto’s hand on his left arm like a hot coal against his skin.  The bad news was he could feel that and it bloody hurt!  Harry hissed sharply, as Naruto yelped and yanked his hand back.

“What the hell?”

Harry jerked his arm away, irrationally trying to hide it behind him just in case Naruto got another brilliant idea like touching it again.  Shite, but that had hurt!  He would have tucked the arm up if he could have made it move.  As it was he had to settle for hunching over to protect it.  “Nevermind that,” he said quickly, once the pain had passed enough to let him talk.  “There may be more of them.  You have to go!”

Naruto grinned.  “Can’t be too many of them, I saw a couple you’d taken down.  Very cool.  Think you could show me the one with the-”

“Naruto!” Harry interrupted.  “You shouldn’t be here!  It isn’t safe!”

But Naruto just shrugged.  “Don’t worry.  But man, is Sasuke going to be pissed!  He’s goin’ to-”

“Naurto!  Behind you!”

The other boy didn’t hesitate after that.  He tackled Harry around the middle and sent the two of them crashing back down to the ground (this time _on top_ of the other body) as a curse went flying over them.  Harry was still contemplating how he always seemed to be the one on the bottom of these little dog piles, and just starting to remember that he should be scrambling to get back up, when Naruto hopped back up his feet and pivoted sharply to face their assailant head on.  Naruto slapped his hands together to start making the seals they’d shown him earlier when a voice shouted out from the distance.  The words were all too familiar and the last thing Harry ever wanted to hear.

“No!” he shouted, as he did the only thing he could think of.  His hand snapped out faster than he’d ever thought he could before, and he yanked good and hard on Naruto’s ankle.  He felt the other boy’s leg start to give even as a bright flash of green light raced at them.  There wasn’t time to think of which of the two would be faster, gravity or light.  Harry braced himself to feel another body come crashing down on top of his again only to find his hold on Naruto’s leg ripped out of his hand as the other boy went flying backwards.

Harry would have shouted again, but there really was no point, was there?  It was everything he’d dreaded since he first realized the Death Eaters had followed him there.  Clenching his teeth, Harry scrambled back over the body beneath him and up to his feet.  His wand was still clutched tightly in one hand and it didn’t shake as he whipped it sharply through the right movements.  “ _Impedimenta!”_ he screamed back.  “ _Incarcerous!  Langlock!  Furnuculua!”_ He snapped out spell after spell until he was sure the other wizard couldn’t so much as twitch.  Harry paused then, sucking in one deep breath after another, not thinking – very deliberately not thinking – about anything beyond the next spell.  About what should be the next spell.  And wondering if this time he had enough hatred to make it work.

And then Naruto groaned from behind him and everything rushed out of Harry in one great whoosh!  It left him breathless as he turned slowly around, half afraid that he was imagining things.

But that really was Naruto reaching one shaking hand up to rub at his face.

With a whoop Harry dashed over to Naruto’s side.  Or tried to, at least.  It came out more as a stagger.  He dropped down to his knees by the other boy and quickly gave his shoulder a hard shake using his good hand.  Even that hurt, though.  He must have burnt his hand at some point.  He didn’t care about that right then, however.  He was more interested in the grimace Naruto gave, the way his skin look so tender it was almost orange, the way he was very much not dead.

Just to be sure, Harry gave him another good shake, and smiled like an idiot when Naruto whined and tried to pull away.  “Oh, thank god,” Harry breathed out.  “I didn’t think I’d pulled you clear.”

Naruto’s face scrunched up even more.  “Ya mean that thing didn’t hit me?  ‘Cause it sure hurt.”

Harry laughed.  “No, I think you just tripped backwards.  Must have hit your head pretty good on the way down.  Trust me, if you’d been hit by that, you wouldn’t be alive.”

“I dunno,” Naruto muttered as he finally rolled himself over onto his side and slowly pushed himself up to his knees.  “I gotta pretty thick hide.

“Not this thick,” Harry replied with a grin.  “That was the Killing Curse.  It only does one thing.”

Naruto stopped rubbing at his face and his bright blue eyes peered out at Harry with none of their usual good cheer and playfulness.  “You guys gotta jutsu just for killing people?  One that’ll kill ‘em just like that?”

Harry felt himself flush, suddenly ashamed that the bright shining world that was magic was also the same twisted place that could make something like that.  Ashamed that he’d even thought about using it, even on someone as terrible as Bellatrix or any of the other Death Eaters.  He nodded slowly.

Naruto stared at him for a moment before slumping over with a gusty sigh.  “That’s pretty fucked up,” he announced.  He shook his head once, then slowly pushed himself to his feet.  “Where’s Sasuke?”

Harry flinched.  Oh, man, his cousin was going to be _livid_.  He may have forgotten to mention a few things to Sasuke, and he had a feeling he wasn’t going to get away with that after this.  Though, that might be the least of his problems.  After everything that had happened, all the damage he’d caused, Sasuke might not want him living with him anymore.  Who would?  Harry slumped down even more, feeling sore and achy and more than a little sick to his stomach.  “I kind of left him at the house.”

Naruto froze in the middle of stretching out his back.  “You left him?” he repeated in a voice that was almost hollow.

Harry shrugged his good shoulder.  “It was the best plan I could come up with.  Don’t worry, I think all of them followed me.  I hope.”

Naruto was back to staring at Harry and it was really beginning to get annoying.  Thankful Naruto finally shook his head.  “He’s going to kill ya for this, you know?”

Harry grimaced.  “Yeah,” he replied, hoping the other boy didn’t mean literally.  He was fairly sure Naruto didn’t.

When Harry didn’t move to get up, Naruto helpfully hooked a hand under his arm and yanked him up to his feet.  “Come on,” he said, “gotta face him eventually.  Kinda surprised he isn’t here already, going all ape shit on these freaks.  Not like him to pass up a good opportunity to rage a little.”

Harry stumbled along beside him as they made their way down the street, stopping by each body to make sure all of the Death Eaters were either securely unconscious or more permanently disabled.  When they passed the third giant hole blown out of the road, Harry finally admitted that he may have broken a few things in his haste to escape.  He was fully prepared to come back and fix each and every one of them himself as soon as he was capable, but Naruto just laughed.  “Harry, this is a ninja village.  Everyone breaks things.  This isn’t anything you, me and Sasuke can’t patch up tomorrow.” 

And apparently, that was all there was to be said about the matter.

 

The corpse was burnt so bad it was blackened and still smoking.  Regardless, Sasuke was not going to take any chances.  Dropping to one knee on the man’s chest, he flicked a kunai into one hand and slashed it across the man’s throat.  If he had had the time, he would have been even more thorough.  Over the years he had encountered several various nin that one should never assume were dead.  Not until the body was torn apart and each piece burned until all that was left were ashes.  Considering all of the trouble these wizards had caused him, how unpredictable and foreign each of their attacks had been, Sasuke was not completely comfortable making any assumptions about their abilities.  But beheading a body with only a kunai took time.

There was never enough time in his life these days.  After years of waiting and training for his revenge, of eagerly awaiting that one day, it was maddeningly frustrating to now constantly feel like fate was rushing passed him faster than he could run to keep up.  He had barely even managed to keep up with this idiot.  A kill that should only have taken him seconds had stretched out far longer than it should have and still left him injured.  Sasuke snarled down at the dead body beneath him.  Idiot indeed!  He knew better than this!  Never underestimate an enemy.  Always assume the worst.  The unknown is far more dangerous than the known.  Look underneath the underneath.  Trust no one.  How many times had he had those lessons repeated to him?  How many times had he tried to do the dobe a favor and beat them through that thick skull of his?  And yet Sasuke had still treated this entire situation as if it was one under his control.  Hah!  When had he ever had control over anything?  _Whenever_ he was beginning to think he had power over something, someone else had to come and rip it out from underneath him.  And this time he had no one to blame but himself.  ~~~~

With a scowl, Sasuke pushed himself up to his feet.  Both his left shoulder and his right forearm were badly burnt, and each time he moved, the skin tried to stretch and instead sent pain shoot down to the tips of his fingers before twisting its way back up to run across his shoulders and down into his spine. 

_“Burns are the worst,”_ Sakura had told him once.  _“Your very nerve endings are damaged, and it’s more than just the pain.  Functionality drops significantly, and don’t get me started on infection.  I’ve seen gut wounds that weren’t as debilitating as a bad burn.”_

Sasuke had been singed a time or two in his life.  Anyone who worked with fire always was.  But those burns had been nothing more than superficial.  An annoyance.  This was more.  He could feel it in the way his skin pulled tight only to grudgingly tear loose again when he swung his arm through a full shoulder movement.  It hurt, badly.  But the pain was a good sign.  If it hurt, then the burn did not extend passed the top layer of skin.  It didn’t stop him from keeping his grip tight on the kunai in his hand.

He turned away from the body at his feet and stared down the empty road.  There was only silence now.  No distant explosions, not even the sound of running feet.  He knew roughly what direction his cousin had headed towards, but the buildings made it difficult to pinpoint that location.  Too many things to hide behind, too many things blocking the path.  Sasuke stood perfectly still.  Between one breath and the next, he evened his breathing pace out.  After the next measured inhale, he stopped breathing all together and listened.

Over the sound of the wind rushing between the buildings and the distant murmur of the compound’s stream, Sasuke swore he could almost hear the sound of Naruto’s laughter.  But surely that was too much to hope.  Even though Sasuke had been expecting the other boy to return soon, and even though the sounds of a battle would have brought his friend faster than even the allure of fresh ramen, it was still far, far too much to hope that there was something worth laughing over tonight.

Sasuke exhaled in a gust of frustration before the four figures dropped out of the sky.

“What in the hell took you so long!” Sasuke snapped sharply without turning to look at the four ANBU standing as silent and still as shadows behind him.

There was only the briefest hesitation before one of them murmured softly, “our apologies, Uchiha-san.  There has been a…disturbance?”

If it hadn’t been for the fact that he might still need each and every one of his kunai, Sasuke would have stabbed the man.

“The disturbance is still happening,” he hissed, instead.  “My cousin is still-”

“Uzumaki has already intercepted your…cousin,” one of the faceless men replied.  Both the name Uzumaki and the term cousin seemed to give the man some trouble.  Sasuke flicked his eyes over once, taking in which of the four of them it was, his height and build.  He knew most of the ANBU on sight these days, even if he didn’t know what exactly their faces looked like or what their names were.  There were only so many high ranking nin in the village after all, and Sasuke never forgot.

“Was this before or after you decided to grace us with your presence?” Sasuke replied.  “It certainly was not during the actual attack in the middle of the fucking village.”

There was a tightening of shoulders, the slightest shifting of feet, before the first ANBU to speak sliced one hand downward as sharp and unrelenting as any knife.  The silent command was instantly obeyed, and whatever insipid reply the other man had been about to make was professionally swallowed whole.  “I apologize, Uchiha-san,” the team leader continued.  “There were some slight complications with our wards.  The matter is already being investigated.  Are you in need of assistance at this point?”

Sasuke snarled back at the man and his infuriatingly “What I need is the guarantee of the safety of my cousin!”

“Every reasonable measure is being taken, Uchiha-san,” the ANBU captain replied softly, as if speaking gently would somehow miraculously calm Sasuke.  He ought to know better.

“That is not enough!” Sasuke shouted back.

The captain did not even flinch.  It was a voice from the back of their little group that muttered darkly, “now he wants the help of this village.”

“Silence!” the ANBU captain roared back, for all the good it would do.  It was clear that the man did not have proper control over his troops.  Standards must be slipping.

Sasuke breathed deeply through his nose and resisted the urge to kill someone.  The Hokage would be more than a little miffed if he offed one of her finest.  “If this is the kind of support,” Sasuke spat back, sneering the last word until it was something twisted and sharp, “of the great village, then maybe I was not too far off after all.”

The ANBU captain’s shoulders stiffened, but he had finally managed to gain control over his soldiers and none of them so much as flinched.  “I’m sure Uzumaki-san would not appreciate hearing you say that, not after he risked himself to save your cousin.”

Sasuke snorted.  “Uzumaki’s different.  Idiot’s always been different,” he muttered before turning away.  He had wasted enough time on these failures.  Curling his hand in closer to his torso, he sprinted away from the circle of ANBU and the dead body.  Let them clean up the mess.  He would be having words with the Hokage at a later date about the type of incompetents she placed in charge of the village’s defenses.  Claiming there had been a “complication” with the wards as justification for a delay that could have been very fatal was not acceptable.  The wards were only supposed to serve as a warning system anyway.  They should have still been able to react immediately to the first sign of there being a problem.  

Sasuke was not interested in excuses.  

He slid around another corner, following the growing trail of destruction.  There as a brief moment of panic seeing just how bad things had gotten, knowing that his cousin had been the one such attacks were aimed at, before his brain caught up with the rest of him and he remembered that Harry was safe.  Naruto had him.  It would take a disaster of global proportions to prevent Naruto from making sure Sasuke’s cousin was safe.

Sasuke had absolute faith in that.  What did he need a village for?

At the end of the street, walking calmly side by side, were the two biggest troublemakers in Sasuke’s life.  Sasuke sucked in another deep lung full of air and quickly took stock of both of them.  Naruto was the same as always.  A little singed around the edges maybe, and even from a distance Sasuke could feel that slight hint of ozone that seemed to follow Naruto around after a particularly explosive fight.  But he was not limping, there was no obvious blood, and his eyes clear blue and crinkled up in a ridiculous grin.

Harry was not in as good of condition.  His clothes were torn and burnt and stain with what might be blood, but which certainly included mud.  He had a collection of small scraps across one arm.  He was favoring his left leg just slightly.  A pulled muscle maybe, nothing too serious but it was slowing him down.  He had a bruise running across the side of his face that was little more than a angry red mark now, but would certainly bloom into something purple and nasty in a day or two.  But his face was relaxed, a faint hint of what might have been a smile still lingering.  He kept glancing at Naruto as if the other boy had done something particularly interesting.  As if he still was.  

At the same time, Sasuke did not miss the way Harry carefully glanced away from the damage surrounding them.  Being aware of that, however, did not explain it or what _Sasuke_ was supposed to do about it.

“Oi!  Sasuke!” Naruto shouted out across the distance, waving one whole arm back and forth enthusiastically.  “Look what I found!  Safe and sound!”

Harry’s head shot up and his eyes fixed on Sasuke.  Even from behind those ridiculous thick glasses, Sasuke could see the way Harry’s eyes widened, before sweeping over him thoroughly.  Without waiting for any other sign, or even for Naruto, his cousin suddenly broken into a jog coming towards him.  He was definitely favoring his left leg.  It did not slow him down, surprisingly, but it was plain in the way his whole body would tense up before his weight came crashing down on it, only to relax once more after he pushed off of it.  With an annoyed hiss, Sasuke crossed the distance between them, bringing Harry to a startled stop.

Sasuke opened his mouth without thinking, ready to call Harry all sorts of names, starting with stupid and probably not stopping until he ran out of breath.

“Are you alright?” Harry gasped immediately.

If it had not been so terribly counterproductive he might of had to strangle his own cousin.  “Am I _what_?”

Harry barely seemed to hear him.  His eyes had already fixed on Sasuke’s shoulder and arm.  It was too late for Sasuke to tuck it behind his back, and there was no hiding the state of his shirt, or the tender skin underneath.  

“Oh, god,” Harry practically whimpered.  He reached out with his hands as if to take ahold of Sasuke’s wounded arm.  If it had been anyone else, Sasuke would have sent them flying the other direction, or at the very least flinched back, but he managed to hold himself perfectly still.  At the last moment, Harry stopped and yanked his hands back.

“This never should have happened,” Harry whispered.

Well, at least there was one thing they could agree on.  Sasuke felt the heat of shame slowly build its way across his face and resisted the urge to growl at something, or even worse, tuck his head down.  There were so many things about this situation that never should have happened that he did not even know where to begin with what he had done wrong first.  Other than an overall, general failure to protect his family.  Again.  It did not matter that Harry was alright in the end, nor that Naruto had been there to pick up the pieces.  None of it ever should have happened.  

“This is all my fault,” Harry continued, his voice faint at first but growing more and more frantic.  “I’m so sorry.  The last thing I wanted to do is cause trouble. I shouldn’t have stayed here.  I - I tried to lead them away.  I know that doesn’t count for much, you still got hurt.  I’m sorry.  It should have been me.  How - how bad is it?  You’re not hurt anywhere else are you?  We should take you to a doctor, or a healer, or something.  Shouldn’t we?  Naruto?  What do we - I mean, we need to help him.”  Harry turned to Naruto, clearly seeking some guidance, but Naruto could only stare back at him dumbfounded.

Sasuke suspected he looked the same way.  It took him a good half a minute to even begin to process parts of his cousin’s long ramble of an _apology_.  “You!” he growled out, feeling angry, relieved and confused all at the same time, and only too willing to go with the one he understood best.

Harry flinched back.  His shoulders hunched in as he flushed darkly.  One hand was already reaching up to smooth his bangs down.  But it did not stop him from still inspecting Sasuke carefully from head to toe once more, his eyes lingering on one particular spot as if he couldn’t stop staring at the red, blistered skin.

Without thinking about it, Sasuke twisted his arm around and back behind him, ignoring the tight pull of damaged skin and the sharp rip of pain that flared up the arm.  He kept his face carefully blank until the worst of it had past.  It cleared some of the left over fury from his mind - which only left him with confusion and feeling like academy student that had wandered into a genjutsu match.  “Naruto-” he started.

“Oh, hell,no!” Naruto exclaimed back before he had gotten any further.  “No way!  I am not getting into this one.  You two figure it out.”  And with that, he crossed his arms over his chest and turned his back to the two of them.  His eyes must have caught the shadows of the ANBU team still lurking nearby, because he suddenly stuck his tongue out at them with a look in his eyes that promised a not-so-good-natured prank was coming to someone soon.  Apparently, Naruto did not need Sasuke’s help in keeping track of which certain village members were less trustworthy than others.

Which really meant that Sasuke had one less thing to worry about, but it did not help him any with the bigger problem he currently had to deal with.

“I am really sorry,” Harry repeated quietly, his eyes now fixed on the ground and a look on his face like he was thinking of the worst thing possible.  “I know that doesn’t change much.”  He flinched again at his own words.  “God, but I wish I could change the things I’m sorry for.”

Sasuke huffed.  While he normally had no problem yelling at an idiot, it did take a certain amount of satisfaction out of it when the idiot in question did not even know he was being an idiot.  Taking a deep breath, Sasuke tried to focus on the facts.  “You knew those men were after you?”

“Yes,” Harry replied, sounding miserable.  “They’re wizards, like me.  I mean, we not _alike_.  They’re a bunch of murderous bastards, following an even bigger murdering bastard of a lunatic, but yes.”

Another deep breath and the next question.  “And you knew I was nearby, in the house?”

Somehow his cousin managed to look even more miserable.  If more kunai lessons were in order, then learning to keep a stoic expression in the face of any question was the next thing in the list of skills his cousin desperately needed to learn fast if he was going to survive in a ninja village.  

“Well?” Sasuke demanded.

“Yes, but I thought they’d all follow me!  None of them were supposed to stay behind and hurt you!”

“And did it ever occur to you to ask for _help_?” Sasuke shouted back, feeling his rather tentative hold on his temper snap like a rusty kunai.

Harry’s head snapped up, his wide green eyes meeting Sasuke’s own unnaturally red ones without hesitation.  “No,” he said.  “I couldn’t.”

“Would not,” Sasuke snapped back, feeling furious, and frustrated and oddly dismissed.  “I was right there.  I could have helped you.  I _would_ have helped you.  I was supposed to be there to help you!”

“I couldn’t!” Harry yelled.  “I’m not going to get anyone else killed!  I’m not!”

Sasuke wanted to snort at that, but something stopped him at the last moment.  Being responsible for another’s death was never something to make light of, he guessed.  “I am not that easy to kill,” he announced instead.

Harry did not hesitate to give him a sarcastic look back and staring very pointedly at the arm Sasuke still kept hidden behind his back.

And damn, if he was not flushing again.  “A miscalculation, nothing more.  One that will _not_ happen again, I can assure you of that.”  There was a scuffle of noise from the side and Sasuke did throw one of his last remaining kunai.  “ _Shut up_ , Naruto!”

The other boy caught the blade by the ring and twirled it lazily around one finger.  “I said nothing,” he sang back without turning around.

Harry ignored Naruto with an impressive single-mindedness.  “This is all my fault.”

Sasuke glared back at him.  “Yes, it is,” he agreed.  “And if you ever do anything as moronic as _not_ coming to me for help again, then so help me, you are never seeing daylight again.”  Harry opened his mouth to argue about something, but Sasuke cut him off with a sharp jerk of one hand.  “I assure you, it will bring me little satisfaction to kill your enemies if _you are already dead._  We are a clan.  We fight together.  You do not, will not, face these enemies of yours again alone, do you understand me?”

Harry shook his head.  “You don’t know what they’re like, what they’re capable of.”

Sasuke jerked his bad arm back out in front of him, holding it up dispassionately so that everyone could see just how badly his last fight had gone.  “I am learning,” he announced with great solemnity.  “I will not be caught so unprepared next time.”

“You can’t-”

“Do not tell me what I can or can not do!”

“Then don’t tell me, either!” Harry shouted back.

Sasuke jerked his head back and forth.  “This is not negotiable,” he announced with as much finality as possible, before forcing the last of his anger out in a gush of air and resorting to fighting dirty.  “Harry, please.”

“But-” Harry tried to argue.

“ _Please_.”

There was one long moment as the two of them stared at each other before Sasuke won.

“This isn’t a good idea,” Harry insisted.

“Your judgment is clearly impaired.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Tough luck.”

“ _Sasuke_!” Harry hissed back, clearly frustrated that he was not getting anywhere, and apparently not clueing in yet that he had already implicitly agreed.

_"Harry!”_ Sasuke mimicked back, before grimacing.  Heavens above, were the two of them really bickering about this?  That was not something he was going to participated in.  No way.  Not even in an attempt to manipulate his cousin into doing what he wanted.  

Someone snorted so softly one might have mistaken it for something other than laughter.

“Shut up, Naruto!”


	14. Making Connections - Interlude 5

Interlude 5

  
If he had been one of his spoiled students, he might have started whining about how life wasn't fair.  It was late, he was tired, he was dirty, and he could think of a hundred other things he would rather be doing starting with a stiff drink and ending with supervising Longbottom’s attempt at making a corrosive-class potion.  As it was, he was going to lose an entire week’s worth of work on a mooncalf-milk based potion all because he would not be there during the two hour grace period that existed between thoroughly dissolved and scalded.

And that was only the beginning of why this night wasn’t fair.  There was still the very good chance that someone would try to kill him that night.  

And just who did he have to thank for this lovely opportunity?

Harry Bloody Potter.

Did the stupid brat actually have to be found?  He couldn’t do the world a favor and just stay lost wherever it was he had disappeared to?  No, he had to drag the rest of them into this mess.  

If Potter wasn’t dead by the time this night was over, Severus might just have to do the honors himself.

After informing one master of his sudden change in plans for the night, he had had to answer to the call of a second master.  Two apparition points, and one hellish portkey later, Severus Snape was on his back, in the dirt, with a knife pressed against his throat and a spinning red eye looming over him as he tried not to get killed by his third master.

“Damned mongrel!” Snape snarled, still trying to push the crushing weight off of his chest with one hand while the other groped hopelessly for his wand.  The bastard had hit him from the side like a ton of bricks, appearing out of nowhere in the dark and knocking not only the sense out of him but his wand from his tightly gripped hand.  The humiliation of having actually _dropped_ his bloody wand while in the middle of a raid was not something he was going to forget any time soon.  And with a little luck, he might be able to share his displeasure.  

But given the way luck had been treating him as of late, he was likely to be disappointed again.

“How?” the voice from above him grated out.  There was the feeling of something searing pushing against Snape’s mental shields, trying to force it’s way passed all of his carefully constructed defenses, and he dropped all attempts at getting his wand back in order to focus on the more important battle.  Snape’s magic shoved back, instinctively trying to force the invading presence out of his mind and succeed in keeping it at bay.  This was one conflict that he would not surrender at.  He had spent too many years perfecting his defenses, keeping his few precious secrets that were truly his and no one else.  No other master had fully forced their way into his mind, and this one would have to kill him first before he let that happen.

The knife at Snape’s throat pressed in deeper, drawing a long line of blood that trailed down the side of his neck and soaked into the ground beneath him - but nothing more than that.

If the man had meant to kill him, he would have done so by now.  Threatening him at this point was useless, not when he still needed Snape.

“Back off!” Snape hissed through clenched teeth.

His demand was ignored and the question repeated once more.  “How?”

“I don’t know!”

A hand fisted in his hair and slammed his head back down onto the ground.  “How can you not know?”

Snape would have gladly bitten through that hand if given the opportunity.  “It’s the boy.  The Dark Lord has ways of finding him.  Ways he does not share with us.”

“That is not helpful,” the voice replied slowly.

“ _That_ is not my problem!”

“I can make it your problem.”  The bastard almost sounded smug.  

Once this was all over, Snape was going to take a great deal of pleasure in hexing him into another dimension.

“Will they come again?”

Snape barked out a dry humorless laugh.  “Given the Dark Lord’s obsession?  Yes, most certainly.”

“That doesn’t work for me, I’m afraid.”

“Then take it up with him!”

“I might.”

And just like that, he was gone.

Leaving Snape to roll over onto his stomach, one hand pressed against his neck to staunch the flow of blood, while the other hand fumbled blindly in the dark for his wand.  Once his hand wrapped around smooth wood and humming power, he scrambled back up to his feet.  He could hear the sounds of a massive duel drawing to a close.

He knew these sounds.  It was time to leave.  The Dark Lord would not be pleased.  He wouldn’t be the only one.

Damn that boy.


	15. Making Connections - Day 4 Part 1

Day 4

 

The four of them were once more back at Naruto’s apartment.  Harry had been thoroughly inspected by Sakura-chan.  Most of his injuries were mild and superficial.  She had them cleaned and patched up in a matter of minutes.  His arm had taken a little longer.  The jutsu was a new one, and she took her time examining how it affected his nervous system before declaring that it would fade on its own and already was.  The best they could do was keep him warm and let him rest.  The words were no sooner out of her mouth than Sasuke had him wrapped up in a blanket and firmly instructed not to move from his spot sitting on Naruto’s bed.  The only reason he seemed to actually be listening was because Sasuke jumped up to hover over him every time he twitched.  Which sent Sakura into a furor of outraged medic as she tried to treat Sasuke’s scrapes and burns.  She already wasn’t very happy to have been left out of all of the action again.  Apparently she was staying the night with them from now on, like on a mission, except at Naruto’s apartment instead of out in the field.

Which was just fine with Naruto, really.

 “Goddamn it, Sasuke, if you do not hold still, I will tie you to that chair and temporarily cut your nerve endings if I have to!”

Naruto grinned from ear to ear and bumped Harry’s shoulder good-naturedly with his own.  “Don’t worry, Harry-kun, Sakura-chan will have old Sasuke back in shape in no time.”

Harry didn't answer.

“Really.  It’s not as bad as it looks.”

Harry turned his head slowly and stared at him.  Sakura had done a great job of fixing up the bruise along Harry’s check bone.  You could barely even tell anything had happened.  He looked a lot better than Sasuke.  Sakura-chan had had to cut off what remained of the teme’s shirt, and the other boy had bitched about it the whole time.  

Naruto laughed nervously as Harry continued to stare at him.  “Honest!  It’s about time someone burned the bastard a little.  He sure as hell doesn’t hesitate to singe his teammates from time to time,” he muttered.

Harry managed a weak smile and replied dryly, “completely undeserved, I’m sure.”

“Damn right, the bastard,” Naruto agreed before giving Harry another bright smile.  It was good to see him joking around again.  He’d been really quite on the walk back.  Whether that was because of what Sasuke had said, or what had happened, Naruto wasn’t one hundred percent sure.  Yeah, Harry had been kind of freaked out about the mess and the idea of Sasuke getting hurt, but he’d also looked like he’d been caught rather off guard by Sasuke’s little speech.  Harry hadn’t been the only one, Naruto thought with another grin.  He knew this whole family thing was going to be great.

You know, all except for the near death experiences.  

 “Sakura, there is nothing wrong with my leg!  Let. Go!” Sasuke yelped.

“Then what do you call this, hm?  Blood!  Splinters!  Hold still!”

Naruto ignored the two of them.  People didn’t believe him when he said Sasuke made for a lousy patient.  Not that he was much better, granted, but it typically took something really big to get him condemned to Sakura’s tender mercies.  He could still understand not wanting to let someone see where he was hurt.  

“Everything turned out alright,” Naruto repeated, since Harry seemed to be missing that little fact.

“Yeah, this time.”

Right.   _That_ issue.  

Naruto didn’t miss the way Sasuke’s eyes flickered over to the two of them before he started complaining even more loudly about whatever it was Sakura was doing with those tweezers.

So Sasuke hadn’t missed it either.  Naruto had had a front seat for the last fight and he’s had a couple of seconds to actually see Harry in action, and he sure as hell hadn’t looked panicked then.  In fact, he’d looked about as cool as Neji on a good day.  It wasn’t till afterward that he’d been scared, scared he’d be in trouble, scared about Sasuke, even scared for Naruto - which had been beyond weird.  

He wouldn’t say he understood it, not yet, but he was beginning to.  He tried to think of the best way to start this conversation.  He needed something smooth, something that would inspire confidence, something wise.  Sinking further into his seat, Naruto tilted his head in and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “So,” he drawled, “crap happens.  You know, a lot.”

Harry’s head turned slowly to face him.  His brow furrowed.  “What?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

Naruto scowled.  “You know, crap.  It happens.  To good people and everything.  And it sucks.”

And now Sakura-chan and Sasuke-teme had also gone rather suspiciously quiet as well.

“Well, it does.”

Harry started to snicker quietly.  He tried to smother it off to one side, but Naruto knew the sound of being laughed at when he heard it.  “Yes, yes, it does,” Harry agreed, but his voice wasn’t really mocking. 

Naruto thought that might be alright, so while Sakura-chan starting insisting loudly on another round of diagnostics jutsus for Sasuke, Naruto soldiered on.  “Wanna tell me about it?” he asked.

Harry’s shoulders tightened up once more, but he didn’t try to move away or tell Naruto where to shove it.  Instead, he glanced away and stared off to the side as if the collection of dirty glasses on Naruto’s bedside really were that fascinating.  “Tell what?” he asked back, with what Naruto was starting to privately call Uchiha-moodiness.  Unfortunately, the condition was hereditary. 

Fortunately, however, Naruto had developed an immunity to it.  “How about ya start with whatever’s got ya so twitchy and convinced somebody’s goin’ to die?”

Harry shot him a dirty look, which Naruto just grinned back at.  “You mean other than people regularly trying to kill us?”

“Sure,” Naruto said with a shrug.  “That happens all the time.  People don’t get twitchy like you, though, unless someone’s actually died.  So who was it?”

Harry’s eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t look away.  “That-” he started to say before shaking his head and frowning.  “Just how often does that _happen_ around here?” he asked instead, his voice sharp.

Naruto didn’t try to shrug it off.  He held Harry’s gaze and thought about all the messed up things he’d heard from people in his own village, and the even worse ones he’d stumbled across over the years in other villages.  “More than it should,” he agreed solemnly.  “People seem to think it’s normal around here,” he explained.  “I keep tryin’ to explain to them that just because that’s the way things have been done, doesn’t mean it’s gotta keep being that way.  That people are worth more than that.  But you’d be surprised how blockhead a lot of these great ninja are.”  Naruto pulled up another small grin.  “So I guess I gotta keep knocking them around until they learn better.”

“Have-” Harry broke off again, blushing a little and looking miserably uncomfortable.  “Have you ever killed anyone?” he finally asked.

“No,” Naruto answered easily.

Harry flinched.  “Right.  Of course not.  Sorry, I can’t believe I asked that.”

Naruto waved it off.  “Ask away,” he reassured him.  It wasn’t like Naruto was going to take offense to anything Harry could say to him.  “It’s a reasonable question.  Sasuke has.  So has Sakura.”

Harry jerked his head up and stared at Naruto as if he was trying to figure out if Naruto was bullshiting him or not.  Then his eyes darted over to Sakura and Sasuke – and away just as quickly.  Naruto’s teammates pretended not to notice.  Sakura was dragging out her inspection as long as humanly possible.  She was even healing the bruises and strained muscles in Sasuke’s shoulder, her chakra spreading deep into his muscle tissues with a glow that probably felt warm and pretty damn good.  Sasuke-teme could probably use it.  Judging by the muscles in his back, he was about two seconds away from crushing something bare handed.  He was probably envisioning Naruto’s face, but that was alright.  He’d just have to get over it.  If he wanted Naruto to figure out what the hell was wrong with his cousin, then he was going to have to deal with Naruto spilling some of the beans about Sasuke’s own questionable history.  Besides, it wasn’t like the whole village didn’t already know.

“Sasuke did?” Harry asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

Naruto nodded back silently.

“How?”

“Probably ought to ask him that.  Like, later though, k?” Naruto paused, trying to think of how to explain why Sasuke probably didn’t want to talk about this with his cousin.  He couldn’t exactly say it was because Sasuke regretted it.  After all, while there _were_ things Sasuke regretted, Naruto knew that, the kills he made in battle didn’t count.  Saying anything otherwise would be a lie.  But he couldn’t exactly explain to Harry how neurotic Sasuke was about keeping Harry out of the ninja side of his life.  Beyond it being a kind of stupid idea, Naruto suspected Harry would take to it about as well as Naruto would if someone told him they left him in the dark cause they thought he couldn’t handle the truth.  Yeah.  He wasn’t getting in the middle of that one. 

So he needed a diplomatic answer.  Time to channel Iruka-sensei.  “It’s just not polite, you know?  To ask out of the blue, and everything.  I mean, you and me, we’re having an important talk.  So it’s okay.  But, you know,” Naruto hesitated, then grinned and decided to go for it.  “Sasuke’s moody and everything.  Very touchy about stuff.  So be gentle with him , ya know?”

Ah, if looks could kill.  The one Sasuke-teme was barely managing not to send his way ought to be classed its own forbidden technique.

“Right,” Harry agreed, glancing himself at his cousin.  “I just – I couldn’t.  I wanted to.  I wanted to hurt her.  But I couldn’t.  She was right there…”  He shook his head.  “And it’s only going to get worse.  What am I supposed to do when I don’t have a choice?”

Naruto scowled.  “People always got choices, Harry.  Always.  They might suck, but we all got ‘em.  And Harry?  Killin’ people is never supposed to be easy.  I don’t care what other people might say.

Harry frowned back at him like he didn't understand. Which was alright. Naruto was just getting started. He had plenty of experience explaining to stubborn idiots how to be human. It was practically a specialty of his.

"I know it's not supposed to be easy," Harry finally announced with a frustrated huff.

Well, at least they had that established. They were already further along than most of the twisted-up nin Naruto encountered.

"But I don't have a choice," Harry continued. Naruto opened his mouth to repeat himself on that matter, but Harry cut him off. "No, really. I. Don't. Get. A. Choice."

Naruto frowned back, feeling his own stubbornness starting to kick in. He really hated it when they just kept repeating themselves. It meant they weren't listening to Naruto at all. Which usually meant the only option was knocking together some heads. Except smacking Sasuke's cousin wasn't an option. Besides, Harry wasn't like that, Naruto was sure of it. He always seemed to listen to Naruto.

"Okay," he said as calmly as possible. "Who says you don't have a choice?"

Harry's mouth snapped shut so fast he was lucky he didn't hurt himself.

Well, well, well. Now they were getting somewhere.

Harry's eyes shifted away, down to the hands as he worried at the blanket in his lap. "Everybody says it."

"I don't."

Harry shot him a dark look. "I mean everyone back home."

"Well that's not everybody then, is it," Naruto announced proudly. "No one here wants you to kill anyone." Hell, Sasuke would probably gladly strangle anyone who suggested as much. Which was such a weird thought.  Everyone accused Naruto of being the trouble maker, but Sasuke was just as likely to resort to physical means of persuasion as Naruto was.  Seeing the other boy bristle in his very best grumpy porcupine impression at the mere idea of Harry becoming involved in nin business was just plain freaky.  Sasuke had never ever been protective of anybody.  He had never ever flinched away from the more unpleasant aspects of nin life.  Watching him try to coddle a cousin that was increasingly chaffing at it was just plain weird. Naruto shook his head and tried to focus. "Why would you have to kill anyone anyway?"

Harry scowled. "I told you. There's a war going on."

"Thought you were still in school," Naruto replied, trying to picture what a war would look like back where Harry was from. They didn't seem very aggressive or war-like. Though Harry's magic might change all of that. After all, they had a jutsu just to kill a person - no fighting back, no build up, no warning - just dead.  That had kind of freaked Naruto out. He hadn't had a chance yet to talk about that with Sakura or Sasuke. There'd been a bunch of ANBU hanging around earlier and he defiantly didn't wanna be talking about an Instant-Kill jutsu in front of a bunch of nin he didn't know well and trust. He probably oughta tell the Old Lady. He definitely oughta tell Kakashi-sensei. He wanted to talk to Sasuke and Sakura first though. This didn't need to go any further than Team 7 right now.  As much as Naruto hated to admit it, Sasuke was probably right that anything Harry related ought to be first handled as a team before involving anyone else.  Naruto had seen the lengths other nin would go to for new jutsus and that wasn’t anything they wanted Harry-kun near.  All of that, though, was not the issue right now. Team 7 would address that later. Right now, Naruto had been entrusted with figuring out what-was-wrong-with-Harry.

"You said you didn't learn to fight in school. Why the hell would it be your business to be killing anyone?"

"Because!" Harry snapped, his voice raising as his patience diminished. "He'll kill me if I don't kill him."

There were moments in a guy's life, when for one brief point in time, the world seemed to hold still. In Naruto's experience, it usually didn't follow anything good. Finding out about Kyuubi. Sasuke walking away from the village. Anything involving Itachi. They also never seemed to last long enough to actually do anything to prevent them from happening. Naruto had just enough time to blink before all hell broke loose. Again.

Sasuke snapped off part of Naruto's poor remaining chair, its wooden frame not holding up in the face of a seriously deranged nin. Sasuke didn't even notice, however. He was already on his feet, spinning around to face Harry, that look in his eyes that reminded Naruto of when they were younger.

Sakura-chan, beautiful, talented, Sakura-chan, was also already on her feet and had moved in front of him. "Outside. Now."

Sasuke actually growled back at her. Not very dignified, that. "Who-"

"Out! Now!"

Naruto held himself perfectly still. He hadn't even so much as twitched from his sprawled position next to Harry. No reason to add to this little drama. Especially since Harry had jumped a good foot into the air. Apparently he'd forgotten about their audience. Naruto was kind hoping acting calm and understanding might rub off on the other boy. Even if it was hard to see that desperate look on Sasuke's face and not do something about it.

Sasuke stared at Harry, looking furious and scared and a little betrayed all at the same time.

"Uchiha!" Sakura snapped in her best medic-nin voice. "Outside! Now! Do not make me repeat myself again. You will not like it."  It was amazing how much Sakura-chan had learned from the Old Lady.  Amazing, and absolutely terrifying sometimes.  But even that didn’t look like it was going to be enough in the face of an enraged Uchiha with something to protect.

Naruto made sure to catch Sasuke’s eye.  Naruto nodded slowly, carefully, hoping Harry wouldn't notice and that the message would be clear enough to get through that thick skull of Sasuke’s.

"Sasuke," Sakura started to growl, before the other boy spun sharply on one heel and marched out the door. Sakura took one deep breath before turning to face Harry. She smiled brightly in that creepily forceful way she did sometimes, as if she could shove good-humor down your throat like some kind of tonic. "Sorry about that, Harry. Nothing to worry about. I'll just go straighten this out. Be back in a bit!" she said before she too pivoted sharply and stalked out of the room.

"Well," Naruto announced into the empty silence. "That could have been worse."

Harry dragged his eyes back to Naruto. They were wide with shock at the sudden outburst, but they were quickly narrowing into annoyance.

Crap. Better, distract him from that. "Well, we only lost the chair, yes? Not so bad."

Harry jerked around and spotted the shattered chair. "That arse! He promised not to break anything else!"

Naruto laughed. A lot. "Harry," he finally gasped out between chuckles. "Trust me, if that's the worse that happens around here, then we're doing just fine. It's just a chair," he said, waving the whole issue away. "It's not like he, you know, forgot to mention someone's trying to kill him or anything."

Harry grimaced but didn't lose his glare. "That's none of your business!"

Naruto gave him a sad look and shook his head. "You still don't get it, do you? You're Sasuke's important person."

Harry started to flush. "I'm not-"

"Yes, you are," Naruto corrected sternly. "Whether ya like it or not. You're his family, which is just like being part of a team. And that means that everything that matters to you, matters to him and ya need to start taking responsibility for that," he tried to give Harry the stern look he remembered Iruka-sensei giving him so often, but he sort of spoiled it when he grinned again. "Likewise, don't worry about Sasuke and the fire someone lit under his ass. He's always like this. You get used to it. Now how about ya explain this whole business of needing to kill someone or they'll kill you."

Harry opened his mouth with a look like he intended to argue about this some more, in typical stubborn Uchiha style. But then he stopped. He actually seemed to think about it. Naruto had to resist the urge to crow in triumph. Finally, Harry sigh gustily, his shoulders slumping a little - but he looked less like someone burdened down by an invisible weight and more like he'd decided to relax a little, for the first time since he'd gotten there. "It wasn't supposed to be a problem here, you know," he muttered. "I really did not think they could find me here."

Naruto nodded once to show that he understood Harry and believed him. Even if he was thinking they always find you and secrets always mean trouble.

Harry nodded back. "Right," he said, before sighing loudly and leaning back to lounge the same way Naruto was. "You know that war thing I mentioned? It has to do with that. And how my parents died."

Naruto's eyebrows shot up. Just how many secrets had their little Harry been hiding right under their noses? Naruto wasn't surprised to find out that Harry's conviction of being doomed to be a killer had something to do with his parents’ murder. For some reason those two things seemed to always go together.

Harry gave a dry, lifeless laugh. "It's weird you know. Back home everybody knows all about this. I mean, everybody I meet in the wizarding world already knows my name, who I am and that my parents got killed when I was a baby and I'm supposed to be special because I didn't die," he sucked in a deep breath, his voice gone passed something twisted.

Naruto nodded slowly. He didn't understand all of that, but the important thing was to listen. He thought about pointing out just how painfully similar that all sounded to Sasuke's fucked up childhood. But interrupting at this point probably wouldn't be bright. It was so damn hard to get Harry to talk as it was! Maybe his awesome insight would have to wait.

Harry stared at him for a long moment, as if daring him to say anything. When Naruto still didn't, Harry sighed and switched back to staring at his hands. "My parents -" he cut off, before shaking his head. "This wasn't the first time this war happened. Back before I was born, the same - group - tried to take over everything. My parents fought against them. That's why he killed them. Or part of it anyway."

"Who?" Naruto tried to ask as nonchalantly as humanly possible. He even slouched down and folded his hands behind his head.  He could so totally do subtle.

Harry glanced over at him, his eyes looking for something, before he started to smile shyly. "You wouldn't believe what they call him," he replied.

It was almost playful and seeing Harry relaxed enough to sort of joke around was maybe the best thing that could happen.  Naruto grinned back. "Try me."

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

Naruto blinked. "Huh?"

"I know!" Harry exclaimed suddenly, as if he had just shared some important revelation with Naruto. "Ridiculous, isn't it? They won't even call him by the ridiculous name he made-up for himself." Harry was waving his hands about now, as if he'd kind of like to strangle something. Naruto just sat back and watched in wide eyed fascination. He didn't think he'd seen Harry this animated without there being a fight. It was so weird. Sure, Harry and Sasuke didn't look that much alike, but there were enough similarities to make watching Harry gesture wildly just plain surreal. Harry didn't even slow down. "You ought to see the way they completely freak out if someone so much as mutters his name."

Naruto frowned. "What, does he have some kind of surveillance jutsu or something that lets him know where you are or something?"

Harry paused, then blinked slowly. "No. No, I'm fairly certain not. Dumbledore said there wasn't any reason not to say his name."

Right. "Who's that?" Naruto asked. He was starting to feel like he ought to be taking notes. Sasuke, if he wasn't already listening through the door, was going to want to know everything. And by everything, Naruto knew that meant every damn thing from the specific speed with which Harry said each part down to where his eyes were when he said it.

"Oh," Harry replied, his voice relaxing once more into something bored and dismissive. Like it didn't matter, or it was so well known that it wasn't even worth mentioning.  "He's the Headmaster at my school.  He's been really active in resisting Voldemort.  Oh, that's what he calls himself, if you can believe that.  Lord Voldemort.  His real name's Tom Riddle.  Not so high and mighty."

Naruto nodded.  He wasn't sure what kinds of titles Harry's people used, or what ya had to do to earn one, but it didn't sound like Harry thought this guy had the right.  "So what's his problem then?" he asked.

Harry scowled and kicked his legs out in front of him restlessly.  "It's stupid.  Some rubbish about certain people being better than other people, so naturally, they ought to torment and kill those other people because that's what better people ought to do."  Harry sucked in a deep breath through clenched teeth and slowly let it out.  "He's a dark wizard.  The worst of our generation, from what people say.  And he is, I guess.”  Harry hesitated.  “He’s certainly powerful.  And dangerous.  But at the same time, he’s just a power hungry arse, you know,” he added, looking more angry than scared.  Which was defiantly an improvement in Naruto’s book.  “He tries to make it sound like it’s something political or something like that, but really he just doesn't care what lives he has to destroy to take what he wants.  Hell, he enjoys it.  He's the one who killed my parents."  Harry kept his eyes focused across the room and had his voice carefully back under control by the time he'd finished.  Like he could forcibly distance himself from all of it if he just tried hard enough.

Naruto found himself having almost as much trouble.  It was all too easy to picture exactly what Harry was talking about.  Naruto had seen enough shitty stuff himself.  How much did that suck, that it was easier for him to understand a seriously messed up situation than anything else.  He carefully unfurled his clenched hands and tried to shake it off.  Now wasn't the time.  Later, maybe.  Definitely. "So he's the criminal that kill them?"

Harry's eyes flickered over to him for a moment, shaken out of the funk he'd started to drop into, looking confused for a moment.  "Oh.  Yeah.  He is.  A criminal, I mean.  Not that many people seem to remember that.  They're all too scared."

Riiiight.  So Harry had been sort of stretching the truth out of that one a bit.  At least it wasn't a lie.  They could work with that.  "So.  He killed your parents years ago.  I can get why you'd probably wanna do something about that.  What's his problem with you?"

Harry shifted slightly, just barely moving his shoulders down and away from Naruto.  "It's complicated," he said right away, as if trying to cut the conversation off before it could even begin.  "I -" he tried.  "I don't even know if I get it really."  Harry shook his head.  "Not that it really matters.  He's determined to kill me, and everyone else is determined I have to kill him."  He scoffed and glanced over at Naruto with a hesitant look.  "Wizards," he groused.  "They don't - I mean, somebody tells them something and that's it.  It's not changeable.  Hell, I guess they're probably also right."  Harry dropped his head back against the wall behind him and stared up at the ceiling.  "There's nothing I can do about it.  He's not going to stop.  And me, what the hell am I against a dark lord?  I'm just trying to get through school half the time.  And they can't - other people can't keep trying to protect me."  He sucked in a lung full of air as if there wasn't enough of it left.  "I - I can't let that happen again.  I can't."

Naruto sucked in a deep breath himself.  Well, shit.  They hadn't taken that possibility into account.  Should have.  Should have assumed things could get worse.  "Who?"  Naruto asked softly.

Harry shook his head.  He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.  It was the kind of thing no self-respecting nin would ever do.  At least not where anyone could see them.  But Harry didn't seem to care.  He even glared out at the far wall like he was daring someone to start something with him.  "I don't - does it matter who?  It's still my fault."

Naruto scowled.  "Of course it matters!  People should never be forgotten."

Harry's head jerked up and he gave Naruto such a look of utter confusion and horror it was almost funny.  "How- how the hell am I supposed to forget?" he shouted suddenly.  

Naruto flinched back a little, and glanced nervously towards the door.  God, he hoped Sasuke wasn't going to kill him for this later.  Things had been going so well up till then.  He had him talking and everything about important stuff.  Though realistically, it was only a matter of time before Naruto managed to say something to piss him off.  It was kind of more the norm for Naruto than anything else.  No help for it, might as well carry on.  "Then who was it?"

Harry didn't seem too interested in answering and rather more content to continue glaring at him like he really was channeling his inner Uchiha.  Good thing Naruto was immune to by now.  The temptation, however, was too much to resist.  He let it drag out for a moment longer before giving in and sticking out his tongue.

Harry reared back as if he'd been slapped, eyes wide.  For a moment, they stayed like that, before Harry burst out laughing.  His eyes scrunched up ecstatically, before he hide his face in his knees again, shoulders shaking from the laugher he managed to silence but not to fully stop.

Naruto laughed along with him.  He shot a cocky grin back the direction Sasuke had left in, as if the other boy could see him.  Then he laced his fingers together and tucked them behind his head.

"I can't believe you did that," Harry told his knees once he had himself under control.  "I needed that. Thanks."

"No problem," Naruto replied, his ego only swelling even further.  Finally.  Somebody who understood things.  "What are friends for."

Harry gave him another bright smile, apparently not having any problem at all with being Naruto's friend.  After years of having to fight for and prove himself to just about everybody he called friend, it was kind of weird to have somebody simply accept it so naturally.  Some of those hard fought for friendships were the best things in Naruto's life, and he doubted he'd change a damn thing, but this alternative - it was kind of nice.  So while Harry sat and thought about whatever had him starting to frown, Naruto contemplated the advantages of a comfortable, easy friendship.

"He was my godfather," Harry finally announced.

Naruto shut his eyes and breathed slowly in and out.  "I'm sorry," he replied, trying not to think of how badly he had always wanted someone to take such a role in his life, the few people he'd like to think sort of came close, what it had felt like to lose some of them and how terrifying it was to imagine losing the others.

"You can't tell anyone," Harry said suddenly, surprising Naruto.  He even reached out and grabbed onto Naruto's arm, his eyes wide.  "I mean it, Naruto.  I wasn't ever supposed to even meet him.  People -people wouldn't understand.  They think he'd done something awful, but he hadn't.  He hadn't."

"Alright," Naruto agreed easily.  If Harry trusted this guy, that was enough for Naruto.  "Though I'm gonna have to tell Sasuke and Sakura.  You know that, right?"

Harry sighed and slouched back down again.  "I kind of figured.  You all aren't big on keeping things to yourselves, are you?"

Naruto grinned back.  "Would you keep secrets from your teammates?"

Harry's grin was a little lopsided, but it was probably one of the best one's Naruto had gotten out of him.  "No, I guess I wouldn't.  If I know what's best for me, anyway.  Hermonie can be really scary when she's mad."

Naruto shot a quick glance at the door before turning back to Harry and leaning in.  "I know!" he exclaimed in a hushed whisper.  "Girls are freakin' crazy sometimes."  Harry laughed just the way Naruto wanted him to, so he figured he might as well push for the last little bit.  "Really though, Harry, you gotta start thinkin' of us as your teammates.  I guess it's a bit weird for ya right now, but - we all think of you like your one of ours, ya know?  Our teammate.  So, could ya try to think of us the same way?"  Harry flushed a bit around the ears and Naruto couldn't help but grin.  Score one for the dobe.  He totally rocked at this talking to people thing, no matter what else anybody said.  Some stubborn idiots just needed a good talkin' to.

His little internal victory dance didn't get to last long however.  Harry literally seemed to pull himself together after Naruto's guilt trip.  He sat up straight, shoulders back and glared at Naruto like he'd been the one to do something wrong here.  "I can agree to that on one condition.  I can believe that you and Sakura are open to being equals in all this.  But you have got to be kidding if you think Sasuke is.  I know he's keeping secrets from me, and he doesn't trust me to walk down the street without getting killed."

Naruto smiled sheepishly, reaching back to scratch the back of his head and laughing a little.  Alright, so maybe Sasuke was a neurotic freak sometimes.  Really, it was part of his charm.  Once you got to know him.  Really know him.  Not that Naruto could really blame him too much.  He'd probably be the same way.  Hell, Harry was Sasuke's cousin, but that didn't stop the rest of them from feeling really protective of the other boy.  "You do have to admit, it's been a stressful couple of days," Naruto pointed out.

Harry opened his mouth to argue, but then snapped it shut.  "I suppose.  I've kind of gotten used to weird stuff happening all the time."

Riiiight.  Weird was not exactly the word Naruto would have chosen, but he supposed it'd have to do.  "Alright, so we good for now?"  Naruto asked, trying to remember where this crazy conversation had even started.  "People are trying to kill you, cause of some stupid war, and we're going to have to really rethink some of our defenses.  That all sound right?"  Harry smiled back and shrugged.  Naruto supposed that was about as honest of an answer as he was going to get.  "Right. Okay then," he said, slapping his knee.  "I'm going to go round up the bastard, talk some sense into him, whatnot.  Might take a while."  They shared a long look and Naruto grinned brightly.  "A long while.  Not to worry though, Harry-kun!  I'll get him all sorted out."  No need to mention that it might take a few thwumps on the head to do so.  For some reason, stuff like that bothered Harry.  For Naruto and Sasuke it was their best way of communicating.  Maybe Naruto would have to start translating Harry-worry-speak into Sasuke-head-bashing and Sasuke-manic-hovering into Harry-guilt-tripping.  Naruto grinned widely.  He could probably handle that.

 

Sasuke wasn't willing to go very far from his cousin, and Sakura couldn't say she blamed him.  She was starting to seriously feel she needed to glue herself to the guys' sides at this point.  Normally they kept a little space in the village, especially ever since Sasuke went off of probation and moved back into the Uchiha complex.  It had only seemed right to give him a little room and time to himself while he continued to adjust to being back with the village.

Having Harry here, however, was starting to feel like a long term mission - just one stuck within the village walls.

Sasuke's burns were bad but not life threatening.  She had repaired the tissue as much as she was comfortable with doing at the moment.  She'd made sure there wouldn't be any possible scar tissue that might hinder the elasticity and mobility of Sasuke's arm.  She would have to keep an eye on it for infection.  Everything else was merely cosmetic.  It certainly didn't stop Sasuke from pacing like a caged animal just outside of Naruto's apartment.  They could hear Naruto's and Harry's voices coming from the other side, sometimes raised sharp in anger, other times rolling in warm laughter.  They could pick up some of the words without trying.  The effort it took for Sasuke not to try for more looked almost painful.  Sakura could see his hands clenching and unclenching as he moved back and forth.  While Sakura would never say Sasuke didn't have patience, it was more that his patience was extremely limited when not in the field.  And trust - trust had never come easily to Sasuke.  Having to wait and trust Naruto to handle this properly... Well, Sakura was a little surprised that Sasuke wasn't destroying something.

The voices drifted off once more, softening and slowing down.  Sasuke moved to hover in front of the door, his eyes fixed on one point in the middle as if he could bore through the dented wood by will alone.  A moment later they could hear Naruto moving across the short distance of his flat.  The door flung open, giving them a brief view of Harry sitting slouched on the bed, his body language open and relaxed if still a little curled in on himself.  His eyes locked on them right away before Naruto moved between them.

The blond boy slipped through the door and pulled it shut behind him with a sharp thunk.  "Success!" he informed them brightly.  He then grabbed Sasuke firmly by the arm and grinned at him manically.  "Let's take a walk, bastard.  I've got a lot to report and you're going to wanna yell and stomp around some and might as well do that where Harry-kun can't hear ya and get pissy about it."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed and his mouth twisted in a sneer.

Sakura cut him off before he could say something stupid.  "You boys go on ahead," she told them, smiling brightly at Naruto and letting Sasuke hear the edge to her voice.  "I can keep Harry company.  We haven't had the opportunity to spend much time together yet.  It's my turn!"

Naruto's smile was wide and warm just for her. "Great idea!"

Sasuke glared at both of them for only a moment before giving it up with a sigh.  He shook his arm free of Naruto and stepped up next to her, his head tilted down but his eyes focused somewhere behind her.  "Please watch after him," he said quietly.

Sakura gave him a subdued smile in return before patting his arm.  "You don't have to ask," she informed him.  "Besides, I have years of experience with you two.  I think I can manage."

Sasuke simply nodded before walking past her like it was his idea that the two of them should relocate.  Naruto just rolled his eyes and darted after him, his shoulder giving Sakura a friendly nudge as he passed her.

Her boys were being down right affectionate today, and if she hadn't been such a good nin, she might have blushed a little.  Thankfully there was no one around at this hour to see, and Sakura was able to move on with a bright smile.

Harry had moved a little by the time Sakura came back into the room.  He was starting to look uncomfortable again, shifting so that he wasn't lounging on the bed, and instead perched carefully on the edge.  Naruto's small, one room apartment wasn't exactly the height of luxury, but it had its own charm.  That or prolonged exposure had finally fried something in Sakura's brain.  It didn’t seem right to have someone looking nervous in it.  That was the kind of thing Naruto would never stand for.  She would have to do something to fix that.

Sakura smiled at Harry as she moved back into the room, but moved straight to cleaning up her supplies instead of hovering.  She was used to dealing with patients at times when they were still feeling a little vulnerable, and often the best thing to do was keep busy looking and give them some space while not leaving them alone at the same time.  Tidying up a few bandages and disinfectant shouldn't have taken nearly as long as she made it, but it gave Harry some time to pull himself together.  It wasn't long before another pair of hands was helping her clean up the mess Sasuke had left.

"I take it he's mad," Harry muttered quietly, his voice carefully level.  Sakura couldn't be certain if that was due to frustration, worry, or resignation.  She certainly wouldn't blame him if he was feeling a bit of all three.  The heavens knew she felt that way about her boys often enough - and she was their teammate and had to like them.

"Not mad exactly," she answered carefully, before smiling a little.  "Well, no more mad than he is with the world any other day."  Normally, she wouldn't have dared to say something like that about her more volatile teammate.  When she had been younger, the rosy goggles of young love wouldn't have allowed her to admit out loud that her prince had any such flaws.  Being older now, hopefully a little wiser, and much more cautious, she knew the importance of maintaining a united team front before the rest of the world.  Admitting it to Harry, however, earned her a soft chuckle that made her smile back.

"He'll be fine," Sakura quickly reassured him.  "Really.  He's trying.  He may not have the...best...social skills, but he learns quickly."  She smiled even brighter.  "Really quickly."

"Yeah," Harry agreed slowly.  He kept rolling the same length of bandage between his fingers, seemingly determined to get it as tight as possible.  She didn't bother to tell him that stroking it like that was destroying any semblance of sterility.  "I'm trying too," he added, the words coming out in one big rush.

Sakura stopped what she was doing and stared back at him.  She let a slow, gentle smile spread across her face.  "I know.  We all know.  Even Sasuke."

Harry nodded sharply.  "Good.  Good," he repeated, sounding a bit relieved.  He flushed a little.

Sakura was carefully not to show how entertaining that was.  Instead she tried to think of a good change of topic, something that didn't lead back to any secrets, late night fights or Sasuke's temper.  She was just about to extend an invitation for Harry to visit her tomorrow during duty hours at the hospital (it seemed like a better idea than visiting the academy with its hordes of kunai-wielding over-eager students).  The sudden sound of many footsteps on the landing distracted her.  The booming banging on the door made Harry jump.  Probably not enemy nin then.

With a deep breath, Sakura stalked over to the door and flung it open like she owned the place.  The senbon in one hand was merely practical.  Just because they were likely friendlies didn't mean she wouldn't need to stab them a little.  There were, after all, a limited number of people that would arrive on Naruto's doorstep in the middle of the night, unannounced.

"Forehead-girl!"

Sakura squeezed her eyes shut.  It was worse than she could have imagined.  Sasuke was going to kill her.  Unfortunately, this was one problem senbon couldn't fix.

Didn't hurt, though.  Sakura flicked one up out of her hand, aiming for Ino's left eyeball.  The other girl knocked it aside without slowing down.  She elbowed her way through the door, great big mouth running the whole way.  "What the hell, Forehead-girl?  You go off the stinking map.  Literally!  Halfway around the world, to lands unknown, and do you even tell me?  Do you let your best friend know you're going to be MIA from your shifts for days, leaving someone else to pick up the slack?  You had better have bought me something nice while you were gone."  There was a lot of hand waving and stressing of certain words by the time she was done.  It made it easy for Shikamaru and Choji to go unnoticed in her shadow.  Sakura barely had a chance to nod to them.  Ino's tirade came to a sharp conclusion as she spun on one heel and pointed one long finger at Harry.  "And who the hell are you?" she demanded.

"Ino," Sakura started warningly.

Ino didn't hesitate to lean in close, her hands on her hips, as she studied Harry.  He held up under the scrutiny well.  Sakura couldn't tell if it was genuine or faked, but Harry managed to stare back in the face of Ino's nosiness with the perfect expression of mild-mannered bewilderment.  Sakura doubted that he had much experience with girls yelling at him, especially not girls like Ino.  He handled it with a great deal of calm.  But his eyes darted to her over Ino's shoulder and she had the very distinct impression that he simply didn't know what to do.

"Give him some space, Ino-pig."

Sakura was ignored as Ino squinted her eyes and studied Harry from different angles.  "Word around the village is that you're an Uchiha now.  Which is ridiculous.  The only way someone could become a Uchiha is through marriage, and that's obviously not the case here.  Besides which, I'd know about it way in advance.  So you had better explain yourself and just what you think you're doing with our Sasuke!"

Despite the impending disaster this was turning into, Sakura couldn't help feeling a little happy to hear Ino calling him "our" Sasuke.  Since about as far back as she could remember, the two of them had argued over who got to call him "mine".  Certain things had changed that, of course.  Changed everything.  And for the longest time after that, the two of them had hardly ever spoken of Sasuke, much less argued about him.  And while she certainly didn’t want things to go back to the way they were, it was reassuring to know the important part had survived.  It was still Forehead-Girl and Ino-Pig arguing about Sasuke, if not over him.  There was still an ideal there, buried somewhere deep that the two of them both valued and remembered, even if it had never actually existed in the first place.  No matter how jaded the two of them might get, they both would always have a soft spot for lost boys.  And as terrible of a thought as it was to use Harry like that, there might be something to the idea of capitalizing on the endearing factor of Harry-kun's return.  Assuming they could keep things under control and maintain the warm and fuzz aspect and avoid the potential psychotic, paranoid possibilities.  Sakura just had to convince Ino of that, and everyone else would fall in line.

No wonder Sasuke was feeling a little tense when he had so many unknowns and possibilities to keep track of.

Sakura took a deep breath and tried to keep things as simple as possible.  "This is Sasuke's cousin Harry.  His father moved out of the village before he was born, died, and nobody knew about him.  Tsunade-sama agreed he ought to return.  Ask Sasuke if you want to know more."

As far as warnings went, that last bit was a fairly lame one.  But Sakura had faith that it wouldn't be lost on her former classmates.  They could all remember those days in the academy, when Sasuke would have gladly stabbed anyone in the hand who dared to try to borrow a pencil.  Sharing had never been his strong suit.

Ino blinked back at her.  Even Shikamaru's perpetually bored expression had been replaced with something close to shock.  "Excuse me, what?" he demanded.

Sakura couldn't help but grin cockily back at him.  "Surprise!" she exclaimed back in a tone so sweet it had to be false.  It was good to keep her comrades on their toes every now and then.

"Really?" Choji asked, looking to Shikamaru instead for confirmation.

Sakura nodded back simply, trying to keep things calm through sheer will-power.

Harry picked that moment to wave his hand a little in greeting and announce "Hi!" to the whole room.  The tips of his ears were turning red, but he still managed a small smile.

Ino spun back around to stare at him.  One long moment stretched out as Sakura waited for the implosion.  Then Ino smiled broadly.  "Reeaalllly?" she cooed in delight.  "A brand new Uchiha?  I bet you even look a little like Sasuke-kun without those glasses.  I can see the family resemblance now.  So tell me everything about yourself.  Leave nothing out, Harry-kun.  I want you to think of me as a close, close friend,” she said, and with that attached herself firmly to his arm.

Harry may have whimpered, just a little.  He certainly had that slightly glazed over look unsuspecting guys tended to get around Ino.  It made Sakura want to whimper too.  Sasuke was going to kill her.

There was a suddenly explosive sigh from beside her, and Shikamaru shuffled over beside her.  "You might as well invite the others over.  There's no way she isn't going to tell everyone.  Might as well get it over in one painful swoop.  Who knows, might give you a buffer to tone her down.  Certainly more bodies to hide among when Uchiha-san gets his constipated ass back from where ever he and his other half have disappeared to."

Sakura turned wide eyes to stare at him before whispering a very heartfelt "Thank you!"

 

Apparently it hadn't taken long for word to travel around the village.  Harry couldn't say he was exactly surprised.  The wizarding world seemed to operate with the same kind of small community feel, and if there was one thing Harry had learned since joining the wizarding world it was that gossip spread fast.  Not long after the first group of visitors showed up, Naruto's small apartment seemed to be overflowing with people.  Ino, Choji and Shikamaru were apparently only the beginning.  Sakura had taken over the role of introducing him to everyone, rescuing him from Ino's somewhat ambivalent attentions.  Harry certainly wasn't going to complain about having an attractive blond hanging off his arm, but there was still something kind of nerve racking about her.  Like he might not escape her grasp with all his pieces intact.  So when Sakura came over and wiggled her way between him and Ino, Harry was nothing but grateful.  He had a feeling it was better for his sanity to have Ino as something pretty to look at than to have her quite so close.  The fact that Sakura gave Ino a matching toothy smile in the process didn't bother him.  He trusted her to use her powers only for good.

It wasn't long after that that the long line of people had started to arrive.  Most of them came alone, but Harry could see there were certain patterns to all of them - natural groups that Harry was starting to realize were teams, just like Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura.

And all of them were very interested in meeting Sasuke's new cousin.

Most of them were very polite about it.  Hinata and Shino both greeted him very formally, but didn't seem to even notice the clumsiness of his own replies.  He wouldn't exactly call their greeting warm, not like what he was use to in Gryffindor, but they seemed to be trying.  Sakura warmly invited them to hang around, since Ino had decided to make an impromptu party, despite it being so unreasonably early.  Choji had already magically produced some snacks from somewhere.  Ino flitted back and forth between talking to her own team, taunting Sakura, and trying to engage everyone else in chitchat.  Apparently, it wasn't polite to talk about their work, even though that seemed to be all these people did.  Everyone who came was either getting off of some kind of duty, or getting ready to go to one, or trying to fit in practice in preparation for the opportunity for more.

Like Tenten.  Tenten had been cheerful and happy to meet him, but he only understood about half the things she'd mentioned as she and Sakura had talked about their day.  Tenten had just finished some sort of guard shift, was expected to help run her parents shop later that day, but had squeezed in her visit between a report she had made and a training session she had planned.  Sakura had just nodded and smiled as Tenten had explain all of this, as if it was normal for her friends to approach fighting like Hermonie preparing for an exam.  It was like a full time DA club, except more normalized.  No sneaking about, no fearful whispers of what might be happening out in the real world, no constant wondering what was really happening closer to home.  Everybody was so calm and almost cheerful about everything.

Like Kiba.  If Hinata and Shino had both been very polite but oddly quiet and reserved, Kiba was exactly the opposite.  He was loud, gestured wildly, and a bit vulgar, all at the same time.  Harry found himself laughing along right away.  And then there was Akimaru.  He was probably the biggest dog Harry had ever seen.  When he'd first come scrambling into the room behind Kiba, there'd been that first flash of painful memory, but it hadn't lasted.  Akimaru had so much of his own personality, it was hard to look at him and see anything else.  Kiba and Akimaru had been regaling him with stories of all their grand adventures, Akimaru eerily acting out the best parts in a manner far too intelligent for any mere dog.

Then the creepy guy that had tried to pick a fight with Sasuke yesterday showed up.  He strolled into the room as if he owned it.  Sasuke might not like him, but Sakura greeted him cordially enough.  Harry wouldn't exactly call it friendly, but he didn't seem very much like a friendly kind of guy.  "Uchiha," he greeted curtly.

"Um, hello again," Harry replied.  It was surprisingly hard trying to figure out how not to stare at his odd white eyes while at the same time making eye contact.

Sakura's arm around his tightened a little.  "Neji-san, you and Harry have met before?"

"He visited us at the house the other day," Harry answered right away.  "Sasuke didn't mention it?"

Sakura smiled tightly.  "Must have slipped his mind.  You know how Sasuke can be about telling people things.  I bet he must have been thrilled to have the company."  The sarcasm in her voice wasn't even slightly masked.

Neji's expression didn't change.  "Family business," was all he said.

"Of course," Sakura drawled.

Neji turned back to Harry and somehow managed to lift his chin a little bit higher.  "I am certain your cousin must be very pleased to have you returned to his guardianship.  Hopefully it will be a benefit to him," he announced.  He then turned sharply on one heel and stalked away.  Apparently, hovering around the edge of the room was more interesting than trying to make conversation.

Harry couldn’t say he was heartbroken to be ignored.  Ino was always there if the conversation lagged, giving him little tidbits of gossip and asking endless questions about him.  Some of them were easier to answer than others, but these days he was starting to get the hang of not talking about the things he didn’t want to share with strangers.  He’d certainly had plenty of practice with all of the nosey people he meet back home.  At the same time, Kiba kept telling funny embarrassing stories about when they were kids.  He seemed to delight in trying to get a rise out of Ino.  Hinata hovered by his shoulder, a silent part of their conversation, and Harry noticed that the stories Kiba told never featured her as the source of amusement the way they did everyone else.  Harry had a feeling that had more to do with the way she blushed the entire time and not a lack of opportunity. 

Sakura had moved to the other side of the room, quietly discussing something with Shino and occasionally laughing at something Shikamaru muttered.  She would glance across the room at him from time to time, but gave him some space.  “These are our classmates,” she had explained before the rest of the group had arrived.  “We’ve all trained together and worked together for a long time.  Each one of them is a good friend and someone I’d trust to watch my back.”  She had smiled bright and confident as she told him “I’m sure you’ll be good friends with them too.”  Harry wasn’t as sure about that as she was.  He had a hard time making real friends.  But he had to say, this wasn’t a bad start.  It reminded him of afternoons spent in the common room, talking about nothing but still catching up with friends and sharing bits of their daily lives with each other.

This was maybe one of the most normal things he had done since coming to this crazy village.

And no sooner had that thought crossed his mind then there came the sound of someone pounding up the apartment stairs.  Harry’s shoulders stiffened and he pulled his arm back from Ino’s grip as he shifted to face the door.  He was fairly certain it wouldn’t be another attack.  Not so sooner afterward and not in such a crowded place.  But he couldn’t discount the possibility for more trouble.  Or even just an angry Sasuke coming back.  He wasn’t sure which was worse but he wanted to be ready for either possibility.

And for a moment, the entire room was silent, as if the others were also holding their breath to see what this was.  Then TenTen sighed explosively and everyone else relaxed.

The door slammed open.

A tall figure filled the space, calling out loudly.

“Am I late?  Did I miss it?  Yosh!”

And suddenly Harry’s hand was being shaken enthusiastically, another hand pounding him on the back like one of Hagrid’s friendly greeting.  The other boy was taller than Harry and broad in the shoulders but had a haircut like one of the Beatles and was wearing a very bright and very tight one piece track suit. 

“GREETINGS and welcome to the FAIR and MIGHTY village of Konoha!  What a HEARTwarming and TENDER blessing!”

The hand shaking continued, but thankfully the heavy drumming on his back stopped when Sakura came up by his side. 

“TRULY, it moves one even such as I beyond all words!  That a LOST child of Konoha could be RETURNED to our village’s LOVING EMBARCE!”

Sakura was smiling but it was a little strained around the corners.  “Thank you, Lee-kun, that’s very –”

“The POWER of LOVE and familial AFFECTION can overcome any distance!”

Harry’s hand had gone limp, giving up the fight.  He let his arm be pumped up and down and tried to fight off a smile.  Laughing would probably only encourage things and Sakura looked rather distressed.

“Please stop crying,” she instructed.  “You’re going to scare him.”

“But Sakura-chan!  It is such a WONDEROUS and GLORIOUS day!  Your precious teammate must also be overwhelmed with ELATION and DOMESTIC SENTIMENT!”

“Oh my god, stop.”

Harry couldn’t help it.  He started cracking up then, the laughter bubbling out of him.  He tightened his gripe briefly before finally pulling away.  “It’s very nice to meet you,” he said sincerely.  He never thought he’d miss the kind of outlandishness that was typical of the wizarding world, but there was a certain charm and comfort to it.

“So POLITE!”

“Lee-kun!” Sakura said sharply before turning back to Harry.  “Please don’t encourage him.  He means well, but we’re trying to work on…moderation.”

“But FAIR Sakura-chan, now is not-”

“MODERATION.”

 “Yes, Sakura-chan.”

Conversation around them had already picked back up, but Harry couldn’t quite shake the feeling like people were watching him.  He shrugged self-consciously, ad smoothed down his hair.  “I don’t mind,” he reassured her.  “People back home can sometimes be just as….interesting.”

“Really?” the other boy asked, his eyes going wide.  “I must go to this place and see such OPEN EXUBERANCE!”

Sakura sighed, but stopped trying to calm him down.  She glanced at Harry oddly.  “It really didn’t seem like that from what of it I saw.  Things there were very-” she hesitated for a moment before picking the right word.  “Very uniform.”

Harry stared back at her, confused.  He didn’t think anyone had every called the wizarding world uniform, even when they were wearing uniforms!  But then it clicked into place and he waved his hands frantically.  “No, no, not the _Dursleys_.  That’s not home.”  It was hard not to shudder at the idea of that being the only home Harry had and once more he was so very very grateful for Hagrid coming to find him.  “The wiz-” he cut off, still not quite able to talk about it with so many outsiders nearby.  He glanced over nervously, but no one was looking at them.  No a single person.  But that still didn’t mean they weren’t listening.  Harry swallowed and shuffled a little closer to Sakura.  “I mean, where my parents grew up.  It’s different.  Not at all like the Dursleys.”

Sakura watched him for a moment before nodding.  “I think I know what you mean,” she said.  “I think every village has to have a couple of people like Lee-kun here.”

“There is NO ONE else like me!  I am the SPLEDID-”

“Yes, Lee, I know.”

He shrunk in size like a balloon deflating but still looked up at her with wide hopeful eyes.  “But it’s very nice of you to think there should be more people like me.”

Harry smiled widely.  “It certainly makes things interesting.”


	16. Making Connections - Day 4 Part 2

“So.  What are you going to do, teme?”

Naruto was sprawled out on the grass of training ground 13, his jacket unzipped and his eyes closed as the early morning light made its way over the trees and filled the field.

It was tempting to smack him.  Or start up round two of their impromptu sparing match.  But Sasuke was comfortable on his own bit of grass.  And as much as he hated to admit it, the dobe was right.  He had cursed and yelled after hearing what Harry had told Naruto.  Punch a few clones.  Burnt a few shrubs.  And now it was time to accept the facts like a professional and figure out how to deal with this.

He scowled up at the sky.  There were not many options open to him.  And he hated all of them.

Unwilling to wait, Naruto suddenly flipped over onto his side so that he could stare at Sasuke.  “Well?”

 “I’m thinking.” Sasuke shut his eyes.  He did not need to see Naruto to know what was going through his thick head. 

There was a snort.  “Don’t hurt yourself now,” was the response.  “Okay, so let’s pick it apart, ne?  Harry’s got some nasty bastards tryin’ to kill him because he’s somehow pissed off an even bigger nasty bastard that everyone else is afraid of.  Who happens to be the person who killed Harry’s parents.  Your Uncle and Aunt.”

Sasuke’s eyes opened and the world passed unnaturally sharp overhead.  “I will kill him.”

Naruto waved his hand in some kind of complicated motion that was clearly meant to signify something but manage to convey nothing.  “Of course we will.”

He had not expected such easy agreement from the dobe.  “Sooner rather than later,” he added, just to be sure that Naruto understood the kind of violence he was planning.  Itachi might still be alive, but Sasuke could take care of this problem.

Naruto paused, then nodded sharply.  “Agreed.  But what’s our sooner than sooner plan?”

Sasuke gave in and turned his head slowly to stare at the idiot.

Naruto’s hair was a wild halo of sunlight, his eyes bright and his grin just a little bit blood thirsty.  “For Harry? I mean, killin’ the guy who killed his parents is kind of necessary since he’s tryin’ to kill Harry and there’s that whole fucked up part about him killin’ one of Harry’s very special people, and that’s all just a whole lot of killin’ but I doubt this guy’s going to wanna talk it out.”

Sasuke raised one eyebrow.  “That doesn’t sound like what you were telling Harry.”

Naruto’s grin only grew.  “I was explainin’ that it shouldn’t be easy and maybe’s not for him, you know?  And that there’s nothin’ wrong with that.  It’s better that way, even.  But we’re a bit different, aren’t we?  I mean, if you think we can fix this by just knockin’ the guy around a few times…”

“No.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”  There was laughter in his voice and it was probably directed at Sasuke.  It usually was.  But there was still something bizarre about discussing battle plans with the dobe while he chuckled to himself.  It was not that he did not take it seriously.  Sasuke had not understood as a child that the one thing Naruto did take seriously was a battle, but he knew better now.  And it was not some form of sick sadistic pleasure, like so many of the nin Sasuke was in contact with during his time away from the village.  Naruto just enjoyed the challenge – in a way Sasuke had never been able to.  With a simplicity Sasuke had never experienced.

“Just one problem,” Naruto announced, as if this entire situation wasn’t a cluster fuck.  “Harry.”

Sasuke huffed out a breath sharply.  “Care to be a bit more specific, dobe?”

Naruto rolled his eyes and flopped back onto his back.  “What the fuck is Harry doing the whole time you’re off killin’ the guy he’s all hell set he’s supposed ta kill?”

“Not killing him and not getting killed in an attempt to,” Sasuke drawled back since that was kind of the point.  He could agree that maybe his cousin knew a bit about how to defend himself, and these abilities of his would help keep him safe, but there was no reason to take any unnecessary chances. 

And maybe Naruto was right.  Maybe there was something to this business of not killing people.  If it would keep Harry safe then Sasuke would do whatever was required to ensure he had that option.

“Okay,” Naruto drawled back in a much higher pitched annoying voice.  “So, does that mean he travels with you and hangs around in the background, which for the record, I don’t see happening, so good luck with that pipe dream, or are ya leavin’ him behind here?”

Sasuke paused for a moment.  There were choices to be considered, Naruto was right.  “Despite this attack, he would still be safer here,” he finally agreed.  “That is the point of a village, is it not?” he asked, unable to resist needling the other boy some.

There was the expected sputtering and then one arm flopped over lazily and smacked him in the chest.  He let it.  There was little point in blocking such a pathetic assault.  And it was on his good side, far away from the still pink and new skin from Sakura’s work.

“Ass.”

There was also no point in denying that one so Sasuke hummed in agreement and watch the early morning birds darting between the trees in the dim light before dawn.

“Who’s gonna watch him while you’re gone?”

Sasuke frowned.  “Don’t be stupid.”

“Oh?  Then who smarty pants?”

“You and Sakura should be more than sufficient.  If you think you cannot handle it, then I suppose I could hire some additional help.  An in the village protection detail should not be too expensive.”

“Right, dipshit.  And what the hell makes you think we’re letting you swan off to that weird ass place again all by yourself?”

“I can handle it.”

“Really? Cause, ah, your shoulder says differently, ya crispy duck.”

Sasuke glared and made it a point to cross his arms over his chest.  “My shoulder is fine.”  There was some lingering ache and a stiff pulling sensation that would only get better with time and care, but his arm was fully functional.  Which he had already demonstrated when he caught the idiot with left hook early during their ‘conversation’ after leaving the apartment.  It had felt good to stretch out his muscles.

“Only ‘cause Sakura is awesome.”

“I am completely functional,” he replied stiffly.  Just because certain idiots healed up at a ridiculous rates and never had to wait to recover did not mean that other people were incapable of managing.

“Totally debatable.  Totally,” Naruto insisted in his usual detachment with reality.  From anyone else it would have been a grave insult.  From him it was just the dobe running his mouth.  “Not the point though,” he added, further demonstrating his inability to stick with one form of logic for any length of time.  “I’m more worried about those freaky ass jutsu’s those guys were using.”

Sasuke scowled up at the sky, his hands clenched, his shoulder throbbed and he kind of wanted again to stab something.  “I will figure it out,” he insisted, ignoring the snort that came from beside him.  “I can.  I just need more time.  I will not underestimate them next time.  The situation will be in my favor if I take the battle to them.  I won’t have to worry about protecting Harry.  I can –”

Naruto sat up in a flurry of waved arms and sputtering noises.  He folded his legs under him and held up his hand, fingers splayed and started to count off points.  “One!  Any advantage you have from surprise is going to be seriously handicapped by the fact that we don’t know shit about how their world works and you’re gonna blend in about as well as a duck in Suna.  Two!  You’re an obsessive dick who’s still gonna be worried about your cousin and will probably do somethin’ stupid like try to rush so you can get home.  Three! Even if you aren’t worried about Harry, who the hell is gonna be there to worry about you, ‘cause damn if ya don’t need someone to.  Four!  I’m pretty sure one of those bastards almost killed me with one blow.”

…they were not all together completely ridiculous points.  Their mission to retrieve Harry had been significantly hindered by their difficulty in blending in with a society that was so drastically different from what village life was like that it had felt like a different world all together.  It was a substantial challenge, but not an insurmountable one.  The dobe’s other points were just his usual nattering on about doing things as a team and being the wussy little worry wart he always was.  Except.  “You let one of them nearly score a fatal hit on you?” he demanded in contempt.  Bad enough Sasuke had blundered in letting his target singe him, he could not believe Naruto was stupid enough to almost get himself killed.  

“Fuck you,” was the automatic response, “and no, I didn’t nearly.  The thing hit.  Those spell things of theirs are fast as shit.  One word and bam! you’re on your ass!”  He shook his head.  “This one, though,” he continued, his voice dropping down and unexpectedly serious.  “This one packed a punch.  I – I think it might have messed with my heart or somethin’, ‘cause my chest felt like Gamabunta had sat on it.  I didn’t want Harry to know, ‘cause he freakin’ lost his shit when it happened.  I mean, total melt down.  Kid said they have a thing just for killin’ people.  No warning, no build up, and I’m thinkin’, no defense.  I’m pretty sure the only reason it didn’t toast my ass was, well, you know,” he said as he waved vaguely at his stomach like the demon sealed within him was something that lived behind his navel.

But even Sasuke’s eyes were fixed on Naruto’s midsection as he sat up slowly.  The stomach was such a vulnerable part on a human being.  Soft and yielding and poor protection for all of the important life sustaining organs hidden inside.  “How close?” he asked hoarsely.

Naruto shrugged, looking away but keeping his voice soft enough it would not carry.  “Close enough he sent a large burst of chakra through me to fix whatever it was.  Hurt a lot, then just itched like hell.”

Sasuke inhaled slowly then released.  Anything big enough to require the demon’s direct intervention was not something easily overcome.  If that was even possible.  Naruto may lack certain important ninja skills, a fact of life Sasuke had always been and would always be very personally aware of, but there was no one better suited to surviving than he was.  And if this was a close call for him, Sasuke had a serious problem on his hands.

“I haven’t told Sakura yet,” Naruto suddenly announced.

Sasuke frowned, once more trying to follow the dobe’s logic.  “But you will?” he asked.  Naruto was not exactly known for keeping things to himself and was typically the first to spout off about team communication.

Naruto gave him a look as if he were the stupid one.  “Duh.  I just, don’t know who else I should tell, you know?  Except for us.  And maybe Kakashi-sensei?”

Sasuke nodded slowly, turning the question over in his mind slowly.  Examining all of the possibilities.  The costs and benefits.  Naruto wanted his professional opinion about sharing important mission related information.  He was going to give the question the thought it demanded.  “As our team leader, it would be practical for him to be made aware of the situation.  But this is Kakashi.  He is a high ranking nin first and your friend second.  It’s likely he will tell the Hokage.”

Naruto shrugged then scratched at the back of his head.  “Yeah, well, I guess the Old Lady ought to know too.”

Sasuke frowned.  “It will be on record then.  No matter what personal relationship you have with that woman, she’s still a bureaucrat.  And she has priorities of her own.”

“Yeah, but those priorities are the village, right?  Tsunade-ba-chan’s cool.”

Sasuke growled in frustration.  He was very tired of having this same argument over and over again.  “You ca not trust that the village’s priorities are going to be what is best for you, dobe!”

But Naruto did not get angry.  He did not shout and yell and make a general fuss the way he normally did.  He just tilted his head to the side then smiled suddenly.  “Yeah, but the same could be said about your priorities, teme, and that’s not gonna stop me.”

Sasuke scowled.  “That’s – that is not the same.”

“Sure,” he agreed far too easily.  “Look, we’ll just tell Kakashi-sensei, okay?  He’ll figure out how to tell the Old Lady without causin’ any trouble.  The important thing here is, you ain’t goin’ nowhere by yourself.  So again, I’m askin’ what’s the plan?”

Naruto was like a damn dog with a bone.  But at least with a dog you could kick it and it would get the point.  Naruto would just come back for more.  “Fine!” he barked out sharply.  “It can wait.  Harry’s here now so at least the situation is under control and we can work on improving his own defenses in the meantime.”  For some reason that made the dobe grin from ear to ear so Sasuke kicked him.  Naruto didn’t put up any fight, but it was still satisfying.  Sasuke pushed himself up to his feet, brushed off the bit of training ground still stuck to him.  He rolled his shoulder once, pleased at the way everything moved smoothly.  Sakura really did do good work, particularly when she took her time doing it.  In most cases, that was not a luxury afforded to mednin, but her efforts to stall her examination had the added benefit of leaving little more than some pink tinge and a bit of odd itchy soreness in the skin that was easy to ignore.  He stretched in pleasure before turning towards Naruto’s apartment.  He kept the conversation going, trusting Naruto to get off his lazy ass and keep up.  “I am still going to have words with the Hokage about the serious lack of discipline in her ANBU and this ridiculous lack of proper defenses in what is supposed to be a major nin village.”

“Oooh, can I watch?  I wanna see her face when you say that.  I wanna see the crater that’s all that’s left of your face after you say that.  I wanna – ”

“Shut up and keep walking.”

He did the later, but not the former.  His stupid giggles and added predictions followed them all the way home.

To a small apartment nearly overflowing with nin.

“What.  The hell.” Sasuke grounded out, throwing the door open and glaring at the entire room.  He recognized everyone present, but that did little to lower his blood pressure.  Each one of these people was a skilled killer, regardless of how many confirmed kills they did or did not have to their name.  Sasuke did not care if he had known most of them since infanthood.  Knowing about that time in grade school when so-and-so ripped their pants on the playground or threw up in class because of one too many sweets did not mean he knew these people.  He had spent the better part of the last few years very much not in contact with any of them.  Sure, Naruto and Sakura were friendly enough with all of them, but those two were like that with just about anyone.  These people were only one step up from strangers as far as he was concerned.  They weren’t teammates and they were near his only family. 

“Hey guys!” Naruto crowed from behind him before dropping his weight heavily along Sasuke’s back with one arm wrapped around his shoulders and the other waving widely overhead.

Sasuke’s hands clenched.  He wanted to start throwing people bodily out of the door but shaking off Naruto at this point would be challenging.  And he had no doubt the dobe knew it. Half the room would not meet his eyes and the other half was a mixture of dim ignorance or poorly hidden sneers.  It was the latter that had Sasuke’s own face twisting into something vicious.

There was a loud sigh from one side of the room and Shikamaru pushed his way to the front.  “Calm down, Uchiha, no one’s being mean to your cousin.”  And damn if that did not make him want to punch that lazy bum even more.  He made Sasuke’s very real and very currently relevant concern sound like mother-henning!  Like Sasuke was some overemotional, overprotective, overreacting civilian!  Sasuke was going to make it clear just why he had a right to be reasonably concerned about a bunch of nin near his cousin without his permission.

But Ino cut him off.  “Yeah!” she shouted, being stupidly brave in the wake of her wiser teammate.  She had one arm looped through one of Harry’s and the only reason Sasuke did not feel like setting her hair on fire was that Sakura was dutifully positioned on Harry’s other side, watching out for him.  “You didn’t exactly expect this to be a secret did you?” Ino continued, ignoring the glare Sasuke sent her way.  “Oh my god, you guys look so much alike.  And Harry-kun’s our age.  He probably would have been in class with us, or close to it.  We could have been friends!  We’re certainly going to be friends now.  He’s much better than you.  I think he might just be my new favorite Uchiha.”

“Not a lot of competition there,” Neji muttered.

“You!” Sasuke snarled.

“Not helping, Neji,” Naruto muttered, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling even as his grip tightened.

“You’re all idiots,” Shikamaru added helpfully.  “Again.  Uchiha.  No one’s threatening or harming your cousin.  So chill out.  Act like a normal human being.  Try talking to people.  Maybe eat something.  Chouji brought food.”

As if food were sufficient justification for –

“Great idea!” Naruto proclaimed loudly in Sasuke’s ear. And then he proceeded to drag Sasuke over to the kitchen.  And Sasuke let him because it was either comply or start another brawl.  And he had said he would not do that in Naruto’s apartment anymore.  Not without good reason.  And while an invasion of nin seemed like reason enough to him, he was clearly the only one who thought as much.  And maybe his former classmates were not quite as bad as a houseful of strangers, but that did not mean he had to like it.  Or the fact that this all happened when he was not there to approve it and control the situation.

“Drink this,” Naruto ordered, shoving something cold and bubbly into his hand.  “And try to be nice.  This is actually a really good thing.”

The house guests had shifted away from their little corner of the apartment but Sasuke still glared at all of them.  “How?” he snapped back, keeping his voice low but his displease clear.

Naruto rolled his eyes and clinked his own bottle against the one held stiffly in Sasuke’s hand.  “Come on class genius!  Think a little!  Friends obviously mean a lot to Harry.  That was, like, one of the main reasons he gave for wantin’ to go home.  So, he needs to meet people _here_ and make friends.  Having friends here will be what helps keep him here.  And while you might be an anti-social lump on a log, Sakura and I have great taste!”

Sasuke gave him a look that made it quite clear what he thought of Naruto’s taste at least.

The other boy grinned back even more.  “Remember, that taste includes you, teme.  Now be nice, here comes Sakura-chan.”

And she was slowly making her way over to him, Harry pulled along behind her like an attached duckling.  Her face made it clear that she knew he would be upset.  He was not sure if that made it better or worse.  At least she was aware of why this was a colossally bad idea.  Harry, thankfully, looked more confused than angry.  Of the two main expressions he saw on his cousin’s face, that was the one he preferred.

Sakura positioned them so that their bodies were angled to provide them with some privacy and spoke quickly.  “The timing wasn’t great, but it sort of just happened and I figured we better make the best of it.  And it’s defiantly way better to have Ino on our side when it comes to village gossip than not.  I think she genuinely likes him.  Or at least, doesn’t dislike him.  Which will help.”

Harry’s head swiveled around to stare at her, as if he was very concerned about whether or not Ino Yamanaka liked him.  “Wait, what?”  But he shook his head, not waiting for a response.  “What’s wrong?” he asked instead, looking straight at Sasuke.

Sasuke opened his mouth to complain long and loud about everything that was wrong with this situation but then he snapped it shut.  “Nothing,” he muttered, turning his head to look away.

Naruto clapped him on the arm.  “Don’t worry, Sasuke just being possessive.”

“He’s just being cautious,” Sakura said at the same time.

“Possessive of what?” Harry asked with a frown before looking back at Sasuke.  “What do we need to be cautious about?” he asked calmly but prepared to act.

“Oh my god, both of you are a mess,” Naruto whined.

“I thought it was for the best,” Sakura repeated.  It was not an apology, but it was close to one.

Sasuke breathed in and out slowly before nodding his head.  Then he took a long pull from what Naruto had handed him and immediately regretted it.  Nothing liquid should be that sweet.

Harry shifted nervously, his hands in his pockets at least, and not flattening down his hair.  “Do you not like these people?” he asked very quietly.

The answer of course was yes.  Sasuke did not like anyone.  But given the options, and if some socialization was going to be required…  He shrugged.

Harry watched him carefully however, looking for something.  “I like Lee,” he announced, as if testing the waters.  It took most of Sasuke’s control not to make a face at that, but even he could understand that openly disparaging someone Harry was declaring a preference for would not end well for him.  “And Kiba’s funny.”  Oh, gods, why couldn’t they have introduced him to the better options?  Nevermind that the alternatives were people like Neji and Shikamaru, neither of whom were high on Sasuke’s list of people he could tolerate at the moment.  But Sasuke managed some self-control and Harry continued on.  “He was telling me some good stories about when you were kids.”

Sasuke was not imagining it when the room because very quiet after that.  So much for not listening in on private conversations.  Not that Sasuke had harbored any illusions on that point, but it was always perversely gratifying to be proven correct.

Naruto, the dobe, laughed nervously.  It was perhaps the most grating fake noise Sasuke had ever heard.  But it effectively transferred all attention to the loud idiot.

“Sasuke hates talkin’ about when we were kids.  Let’s talk about something else.  Anything else.  Do you like training?  We can talk about training.  Any kind you like, one of us here probably knows all about it.  Training’s great.”

It was about as subtle as a bag of bricks but still seemed to do the trick.  Harry laughed, his eyes still darting over to check on Sasuke but he did not seem to mind the change in topic.  “Training didn’t go so well the other day when I came to watch.”

All three of them flinched and Sasuke could feel the curiosity coming off the rest of the room.  He glared at them and let Naruto handle Harry’s question.

“Okay, maybe not that kind of training.  Another kind of training.”

“Harry-kun is VERY welcome to come join us for our ENVIGORATING morning warm-up!” Lee offered, appearing suddenly at Sakura’s elbow as if he had been waiting for an excuse to join her.

“No!” All three members of Team 7 replied together, just like old times.  There were some things in life even they could all agree on.

“I don’t think Harry is quite ready for that,” Sakura consoled a disappointed looking Lee.

“Trust us on this,” Naruto hastened to reassure Harry when he started to get that look like he might argue.

Sasuke just shuddered and tried not to think of Gai-sensei getting anywhere near his cousin.  Maybe leaving the village right now, even to hunt down murderous bastards, would not be the best idea.  Clearly, his cousin needed close supervision.  And if anyone was going to train Harry, It was going to be Sasuke and it was going to be done right.

 

* * *

 

Things got better after Sasuke returned.

That wasn’t something Harry was used to.  It had only been a few days since all of this insanity had started, but already Harry wasn’t used to Sasuke being an improvement.  But there was something kind of nice about meeting new people as someone else’s family member and not being an embarrassment.  Everyone else he knew at some point had introduced cousins or siblings or parents.  And even if there was some awkwardness, there was always a sense of connection.  Harry had never had that with the Dursleys.  Had never even had anything like it with his friends, since inevitably he was always introduced as Harry Potter and not just someone’s friend Harry.  If meeting all of the odd and interesting people who lived in this village was entertaining, there was something very satisfying about meeting them as an old friend’s family member.  Even if Sasuke seemed a bit conflicted as to whether or not these people counted as friends.

Harry knew what friends looked like.  And maybe not everyone in this room was eager for that connection, they were at least open to it.  And Harry knew how to value that.

So he laughed at people’s jokes and asked them questions about themselves.  And he kept Sasuke in his line of sight and tried to include him in the conversation –  just without talking about anything too personal, or his childhood, or anything that had happened in the past few days – which didn’t leave much, but he tried.

Sasuke put up with it with what couldn’t be called good humor but at least wasn’t bad.

The third time Harry yawned, Sasuke ordered everyone out.  No lead up, no pleasantries, just a sharply barked order and a glare when it wasn’t obeyed fast enough.  But everyone seemed to leave in good spirits.  Naruto promised to train with Lee one morning and personally thanked Hinata for coming.  He also exchanged shoulder punches with Kiba that were surely meant to be friendly but looked a lot rougher than what Harry was used to from the other Gryffindor boys.  Sakura-chan argued with Ino the whole way to the door.  Harry wasn’t sure what the argument was about.  He could have sworn at one point Sakura was arguing for a certain action, but when he next heard the two of them they seemed to have swapped opinions without even taking a break.  Shikamaru and Chouji followed in their wake, seeming unconcerned by the loud debate or the threats of violence flying back and forth.  Shikamaru paused long enough to pat Harry on the arm and wish him good luck, “because you’re sure as hell going to need it surviving this mad house,” before trying unsuccessfully to herd his loudest teammate out the door.  Chouji insisted on them keeping the last of the food, since the four of them were now sharing Naruto’s small apartment and would need the supplies.

The others just seemed to disappear.  Literally.  Harry knew they hadn’t left through the door, but they were certainly all gone when he turned back around. 

And as much fun as it had been to meet a bunch of people his age who seemed happy to see him, Harry couldn’t deny that he was exhausted.  They’d gone through another night of no sleep and it was hitting him hard.  While Sakura-chan had done an excellent job of patching him up and his arm no long hurt, his body still ached all over with the kind of bone deep weariness that come from too much magic and too much running around for one day.  It was early morning, but even the start of a cheery summer day wasn’t going to be enough to keep him awake.

The idea of sleep was alluring but there were still sleeping arrangements to be made and not a lot of space to accommodate four people.  Naruto pulled a couple of sleeping bags out from under his bed and tossed one at Sasuke’s head.  Sakura had brought her own in backpack that looked ready for a trip across mountains.  “Like hell am I going home,” she had muttered when she first arrived with the bag.  She had hefted it like it weighed nothing but it had thunked down on the ground with a solidness that fit its size.

Harry stood in the middle of the room, his hands empty, and made a small questioning noise.  He was tired enough he honestly wouldn’t mind curling up on the floor with nothing and going to sleep, but it seemed like he was missing something.

“You get the bed!” Naruto told him, nudging him towards it with one elbow while he laid out his gear.

And that certainly didn’t seem right.  “But it’s your bed,” Harry protested.

“It’s clean,” Naruto reassured him immediately.  “I just changed everything.”

“That’s not –” Harry started before deciding he really wasn’t up for that conversation and letting it go.  “I can’t take your bed from you.”

Naruto stopped what he was doing long enough to look up at Harry with a puzzled frown.  “You’re not takin’ anything.”

And once more Harry felt like they were having two very different conversations.  Maybe it was the translation spell not working properly.  It was nearly flawless most of the time, but Kakashi-sensei had warned him that there would be some gaps that only time could fill in.  Harry huffed.  If that was the case, he wished it would hurry up.  It was hard enough figuring out what he was supposed to be doing without communication problems.

“If anyone should get the bed, it should be Sasuke,” he tried reasoning.  “He was hurt the worst.”

Harry was expecting the glare from his cousin.  Heaven forbid he be reasonable about this.  But Naruto’s bright laughter caught him off-guard.  “Oh my god, yeah, no.  Good luck with that one.  Not likely to happen.  The more hurt he is the more he turns into a prickly pear.  Just ignore his ass.  Honestly.  He’s a stubborn pain in the ass, so just take the bed so he’ll calm down and relax.”

Harry sighed, but gave up the fight.  He didn’t miss, however, the way Sasuke muttered “ _you_ are calling _me_ stubborn?” and had to smile a little.

The bed was narrow, but Naruto was right, it was clean and the blanket was fluffy.  As soon as his head hit the pillow it became impossible to keep his eyes open.  He was aware, distantly, that he ought to be worried about nightmares.  They had become such a fixture in his life that he was both used to them and constantly dreading them.  But he was tired, and he could still hear the noises of the other three settling down.  Blanket rustling.  Quiet bickering.  Sakura’s reassuring voice.  Naruto’s easy laughter.  Sasuke’s rumbling reply that sounded almost fond.

The next thing he heard was something tapped on the window.

The light in the room had changed, so he knew he must have been asleep for at least a few hours.  Harry rolled over, enjoying the warmth of a bed with a good blanket, feeling less like a zombie but not entirely ready for another day.  He expected to see some kind of bird in the window.  Kakashi’s smiling half face and cheerful wave was much more disturbing close up and half awake.

“Ack!”

Harry pushed himself up against the head board, clenching the blanket and glaring at the man’s faked hurt expression.

“Noooo,” Naruto moaned from his spot on the floor.  “Not morning yet.”

“Where have you been?  Again?” Sasuke growled, not sounding any more excited to face the day.

Kakashi tapped on the window again and it popped open as if it didn’t even have a latch, much less a lock.  “Why, I’ve been busily working away while my cute little students catch up on their nap time.”

“I hate you.”

“Sasuke!” he gasped.  “I’m hurt!  Truly!  Heartbroken!  Now get your ass up and in gear.  The Hokage is waiting.”

“Again?” Harry groaned.  He pushed himself into a more comfortable position and rubbed at his eyes.  It was full daylight out now, which meant they must have slept for a while, but he still felt sluggish.

Kakashi-sensei was back to making that ridiculous smiling face.  “Well, Harry-kun, she does tend to get demanding when foreign operatives execute large scale attacks on Konoha property and citizen.  Can’t imagine why.”

“Food,” Sakura-chan announced, slipping out of her bedding, completely dressed and looking ready to face the day.  She only needed to pull on her gloves as she made her way to Naruto’s small kitchenette.  “We can eat as we walk but both Sasuke and Harry-kun are eating.  They’re still recovering.”

It didn’t take them long to get moving.  Naruto whined until Sakura shoved a granola bar in his mouth, then he started moving with a bit more purpose.  Harry just let himself be lead along.  Naruto gave him a fresh shirt to wear, replacing the slightly singed, smoke smelling one he had borrowed from Sasuke.  There wasn’t much time for anything else except to fingercomb his hair flat and tug on his shoes.  Kakashi-sensei hovered over them from his perch in the window and waited until they were out on the street to hop down from the third story window up and join them.

It was ridiculously impressive and no one else even as much as blinked at it.  Harry had to keep his jaw off the ground and tried not to twitch in envy.  He had a penchant for high places, and the idea of just hopping from one to the next was almost as alluring as flying.

It was probably a bad thing that Harry already knew the way to the Hokage’s office.  He suspected it was a bit like being overly familiar with the Headmaster’s office.  Nothing good ever came from that in his opinion.

There were more people out front at this time a day, and a steady stream of people entering in through a side door.  The ones who seemed to be hanging out by the front entrance all watched them as they walked by.  They were a bit more subtle about it than most wizards were, but Harry was very familiar with the feeling of being watched.  No one called out good morning, but Naruto smiled brightly the entire way.

“I heard you had time for a little party last night,” Kakashi-sensei murmured as they made their way down the winding hallways.

“Our classmates wanted to meet Harry-kun,” Sakura answered.

“Ahh,” was his only response, as if Sakura had imparted great wisdom to him.

There were still two guards by the doors, and Harry couldn’t be sure, but he thought he recognized one of them from a previous visit.  The problem with so many different looking people was it was hard to pick out specific differences between them.  When everyone had memorable hair or scars or wardrobe choices, it was hard to remember a specific one.  The guards didn’t waste any time, however, in opening the doors as soon as they were close.

The Hokage was scowling at them from behind her desk.  The sheer displeasure coming from her made it easy to miss the two masked men standing at either ends of the room, but Harry’s eyes were sharp and not likely to miss something that disturbing.  His steps faltered, his hand automatically clenching for his wand even if he didn’t actually reach for it.  Sasuke said these guys were okay.  That they were guards or something.  That one that had come into his room had acted like he was friendly.  And some of them had been with Sasuke after the attack.  So they probably weren’t bad guys.  They certainly weren’t Death Eaters.  But the past couple of years had taught Harry a very real fear of men who hide behind white masks.

Sasuke’s hand cupped his right elbow and kept him moving forward even as Naruto came up on his left to wave jauntily at the man on that side.  From the lack of reaction, Harry wasn’t sure if Naruto even knew him or was just being aggressively friendly as usual.

Harry’s attention was only distracted for a moment, but the Hokage slapped her hand down on the desk loud enough to make him jump.  “What the hell happened to not likely to follow you, you damn brat?”

Harry’s face drained of color and he automatically hunched his shoulders in and dropped his eyes.  “Sorry,” he muttered.

Sasuke hand was on his arm, still holding on to him but not squeezing too tightly.  He started to say something but the Hokage cut him off with a sharp gesture.

“Not.  One.  Word,” she ordered.  “Your relevancy to this conversation is negligible at best, Uchiha-san.  I can and will have you removed if I feel it is necessary.  Remember that.”

There was a silence after that so uncomfortable, Harry almost felt nauseous.  “I’m really very sorry,” he tried.  “I really didn’t think they’d come here.  I don’t even know how they knew I was here.  I’ve never even heard of this place and I know I’m just a student and I don’t know much about the wizarding world since I didn’t grow up in it but you’d think I would have heard something if everyone else knew about it.  I never would have stayed if I thought I might put anyone else in danger.”  He sucked in a breath.  “So I really am very sorry.”

Sasuke’s grip now was bordering on painful but Harry didn’t try to pull away.

When he dared to glance up, he could see the Hokage staring at him before she huffed and rolled her eyes.  “For heaven’s sake, boy, stop acting like we’re going to throw you to the wolves.  For better or worse, we’re not that kind of village.”  She snatched a long piece of paper up off of her desk and waved it lazily in the air.  “Alright.  So I have reports of several assailant, quite a bit of damage to the Uchiha compound, a couple of dead bodies, a couple of live ones that will wish they were dead, far too many not captured, and reports that for the most part, the three of you took care of this little problem.”

That sick feeling only got worse at the mention of bodies.  Harry was fairly certain none of that had been him, but he couldn’t be sure.  He was throwing spells as fast and dirty as he could last night and hadn’t taken the time to worry about what damage they had caused.

Sasuke huffed and raised one hand like a school student but with a look on his face that made it clear he was trying to be as sarcastic as possible.

The Hokage seemed very entertained by it, however, instead of offended.  “Permission to speak, Uchiha, but keep it brief!”

“The bodies should be all mine.  Given the extreme lack of support from the village defenses, I had no other option but to handle the threat to my family with full force.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s the only reason,” she muttered back, but she didn’t seem to be arguing with him.

Naruto mimicked Sasuke and raised his hand as well, but his he waved energetically.  “I might have been a little rougher than necessary too!  Sorry, Old Lady.”

She merely rolled her eyes at him.  “I understand our newest Uchiha was injured.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Sakura reported sharply, stepping forward.  “He was hit with a jutsu I am unfamiliar with.  It caused numbness and chill in the arm and appeared to be something affecting that part of his nervous system.  It did not spread, however, and eventually dispersed with time.  I examined the affected area and determined that it did not require further treatment.”

“I see.  I’ll like a more detailed report, Haruno, but well done.  Well done as well, our littlest Uchiha, on not getting killed.  That’s probably about the best we could hope for.  The damage was minimal, mostly restricted to condemned buildings anyway, so I’m not likely to get a lot of complaints on my desk.  Won’t that be nice.”  She clapped her hands together suddenly.  “So.  That only leaves the problem of this stream of unwanted visitors you seem to bring, Uchiha-kun.  Ah, ah, ah, no speaking, brat!” she cried when Sasuke tried.

“Geez,” Naruto whined.  “Cut him a break, Tsunade-ba-chan.”

She cackled in response.  “This is the most respect I’ve had out of the miscreant since you dragged his whiny ass back.  I can’t be blamed for enjoying it.  If I had known it would be this easy, I would have manufactured a lost cousin.  No?  Not funny?  Ah, well.  What do you want to complain about now, Uchiha?”

Sasuke seemed to be grinding his teeth, but he managed to speak in a control if tight tone of voice.  “This is the only incident that Harry could conceivably be accused of negligence.  The previous intruder was an attack on the Uchiha family, not Harry as an individual.  He cannot be accused of a stream of visitors based on one incident!”

“True,” she drawled, a smirk on her face as she rested her chin in one hand.  “Except I have the second set of visitors for him cooling their heels in T&I right now.”

“A second group?” Harry asked, his head popping up.  He knew they had caught a couple of the Death Eaters from the attack, but Sasuke had insisted that the village would handle them appropriately.  No one had said anything about a different group.  The group that had come after him had at least been contained to the empty neighborhoods around Sasuke’s house.  He was scared to know what a different group might have been able to accomplish turned loose in a different part of the village.  “How bad – I mean, they – What happened?” he asked miserably.

The Hokage didn’t seem too worried, however.  She waved her free hand sluggishly.  “They were captured outside of the village limits.  Not nearly as troublesome as the rest.  But I thought you might want to see them, Uchiha-kun.  Face to face and all of that.  Bring them in!” she shouted.

Sasuke’s hand dropped away from Harry elbow and reappeared with a kunai gripped tight.  The whole group shifted seamlessly to face the door and to put Harry firmly behind them.  It was ridiculous in some ways.  If these prisoners really were able to cause any harm, Harry was the only one prepared to deal with it.  He was the only one who might know what kind of curse it was or how to counter act it.  But – maybe there was something nice about not having to be the one to face Death Eaters on his own.

Except it wasn’t Death Eaters ushered in by one of the guards.  It was a very familiar face that nearly had Harry lightheaded in relief.

“Professor Lupin!”

Harry squirmed away from the hand that tried to grab him and crossed the room in a few strides.  The professor looked as tired as ever, maybe even a little worse off with some dirt smudges on his robes and dark circles beneath his eyes, but his face lite up in a warm smile as soon as he saw Harry and he didn’t hesitate to open his arms.

They’d shared a few hugs over the years, no more than what Harry could count on one hand.  There had been one after finding out about Sirius.  And a couple of half hugs at Grimmauld Palace.  But usually the Professor limited his signs of affection to an encourage pat on the shoulder, or helping hand.  He didn’t hold back this time, however.  His arms pulled in Harry before he even had a chance to feel awkward and held him tightly in place.

“Thank god you are alright,” he whispered in Harry’s ear.  His voice was tight and rough and Harry let it soak into him as something he wanted to remember.

Tonks’s voice was light and exuberant.  “Harry!” she cried in delight before patting him awkwardly on the head.  It was about the only part of him she could reach with the way Professor Lupin was holding on to him.  But as soon as he let Harry go, she looped an arm around his neck and ruffled his hair.  “You scared the crap out of us, kid.”  Her hair was bright orange and stood up in soft spikes that swayed with them as she gently shook him back and forth.  He robes were bright purple, and the combination was both eye searing and awesome.

“Sorry, Tonks.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Professor Lupin asked, his voice was low and he glanced over at the group waiting behind them.  “We didn’t think we’d get here in time.”

Harry nodded.  He didn’t want Professor Lupin to worry about him like that.  He was always nice to Harry and he did a lot of hard work for the Order.  It wasn’t right that he also have to worry about Harry.  “I’m fine,” he assured him.  “We handled it.”

Tonks suddenly held him out at arm’s length and stared at him critically.  “Harry Potter, why do I not like the sound of that.  I mean, you’re in one piece, which is awesome, but Merlin’s Beard but trouble follows you!”

“It’s not his fault, Tonks,”

“Oh course not!  But I’m the Auror here!  That’s my job!”

“To get in trouble?”

“Yes!  I mean, no!  Oh!” she laughed again and gave Harry another hug.  It was a bit different being hugged by Tonks compared to Professor Lupin and he bushed as he squirmed his way free.

“I’m assuming these are friends of yours,” the Hokage drawled.  The three of them turned to face the rest of the room and Harry flushed even more.  In his excitement he had forgotten about their audience.  Sasuke was scowling and for a moment, when Harry had first turned around, his eyes had looked red once more, but then in a blink it was gone.  Which was good.  Harry did not want to try to explain that one. 

“Introduction, Uchiha-kun, and hurry it up.  I’ve got better things to do.”

Harry cleared his throat and straightened his hair.  “Um, this is Professor Lupin,”

“Not actually still your professor Harry…”

Harry spoke over him.  “One of the best teachers we ever had and an old friend of my father’s.  Tonks is my godfather’s cousin and an Auror.”  She waved cheerfully but kept one hand on Harry’s shoulder.  There was silence as both groups stared at each other.  Harry hunched his shoulders and wondered who was drawing the most attention.  While Harry was very fond of Professor Lupin, he wasn’t blind to the fact that the rest of the world saw him as a very scruffy looking individual.  And Tonks couldn’t help but draw lots of attention to herself.  Her hair was still bright orange, but the tips were starting to take on silverish tinge.  This was defiantly one of the weirdest situations Harry had ever been in and he had quite a few to compare it to.  He was introducing his wizarding friends to his ninja friends.  How did these things happen to him?

And just like that, the most important question hit him.  “Wait, how did you get here?”

Professor Lupin moved up to his other side, standing so that he was facing both Harry and the rest of the room.  “That’s…a very long story, Harry,” he murmured, his eyes focused downward and seemingly ignoring the rest of the room.  He used to do the same thing in class some days, when he knew someone was up to mischief but only waiting for the opportunity.  He’d intentionally act like he wasn’t paying attention when he really was.  No one ever expected it out of dear Professor Lupin, but now that Harry knew the man had also been one of the Marauders in school, he wasn’t surprised.  Who better to catch a prankster than a reformed one? 

“Harry, who are these people?” Remus continued in a voice that was both gentle but firm.

It wasn’t until then that Harry realized how odd this must look to him.  “Oh,” he said, glancing at each of them.  How to explain this mess?  “Um, they helped me?” he tried, his voice getting stronger as he went but still stumbling over his words.  “And, um, that’s why they brought me here.  Because someone’s trying to kill me.  I mean, not a Death Eater someone.  A new someone.  Honestly.  I – I know that sounds crazy, but it’s really –”  

One of Professor Lupin’s weathered hands settled on his forearm gently.  “Harry, we saw your Aunt’s house,” he reassured.  But his voice was strained and his face tight.  “We came as quickly as we could.  Tonks and I – we both came.  I’m so sorry, Harry, that we weren’t there sooner.”  And he sounded like he truly was.  As if there was nothing worse he could think of or blame himself for, and that was the absolute last thing Harry wanted.

“No, no, no, it’s okay.  I’m fine.”  He held out his arms to demonstrate, not caring if Sasuke and the others were giving them weird looks.

It was Tonks who snorted.  “It’s so far from okay, it’s not even funny, kid, but alright.  The important thing is you’re okay.  And you’re new friends helped with that?” she asked, tilting her head in their direction.  She phrased it like any other conversation they might have, but Harry was learning and he recognized the Auror asking for more information.

“Um, yes,” Harry straightened his hair, then tried to gesture to each person without pointing rudely.  “Ah, this is Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura.  And their teacher Kakashi.”  Those were the important people, but he probably ought to introduce everyone else.  He probably already wasn’t doing this right.  No one had ever asked him to introduce someone else before.  “And this is the Hokage.  She’s, um, kind of like the Minister of Magic, I think.  Or the Headmaster.  Or something.  And, um, I actually don’t know their names,” he continued, motioning to the two masked men.  “But Sasuke says they’re here to guard the village.”  Which reminded him of that one very important detail he probably needed to share.  Even if it sounded crazy.  Even if part of him was a little worried that Professor Lupin wouldn’t like it.  Hopefully he’d believe Harry and wouldn’t be too upset.  “Oh.  Um, it’s, ah, possible that my dad and Sasuke’s dad where brothers?  At least, they’re pretty sure and I don’t think they’re lying even though it’s really crazy, but they’ve been very nice to me and I’ve done nothing but cause trouble.”

“You’re no trouble, Harry-kun!” Naruto objected loudly.

“It _is_ true,” Sasuke insisted sternly at the same time.

It was the first time any of them had spoken since the others had arrived and Harry couldn’t help but send Naruto a thankful grin and roll his eyes at Sasuke’s stubbornness.

There was a soft “Oh” from behind him.

Harry paused, caught off guard, and looked over at Professor Lupin.  “Professor?”

“Well, it is possible,” he replied calmly, not sounding at all as surprised or troubled as Harry had feared.  When everyone stared at him, he managed a small smile.  “James sat his NEWTS in potions, you know.” Harry hadn’t, but it didn’t surprise him that his father would have.  It seemed like James Potter did well at everything he tried.  “You haven’t reached that level yet, Harry” Professor Lupin continued and wasn’t it sort of amazing and sort of ridiculous that Professor Lupin even thought he could, given how terrible at potions Harry was.  “But there are certain high level potions that require the brewer to add blood.  They’re own blood.  Oh, it’s not as gruesome as it sounds,” he reassure quickly and his whole presentation transformed once more into that of a teacher.  “Many old forms of magic require small amounts of the user’s blood, for a variety of reasons.  The practice only becomes questionable when the spell or potion or object requires someone else’s blood.” He cleared his throat.  “My point is, we noticed ever potion James brewed had an odd reaction.  Poor Professor Kern couldn’t account for it.  But James didn’t seem terribly surprised.  I remember it, because it was odd for someone so naturally curious as he was to have little to no interest in such a peculiarity.  I asked him about it once, after class.  He made some stupid joke about having always known he was special, but I know James Potter.  Knew, I mean.”  He sighed and Harry grimaced with him.  He understood now, how it felt to always make that mistake.  To talk about a person you loved as if they were still alive only to remember you couldn’t use that tense any more.  “It’s hard to explain,” Professor Lupin concluded.  “It wasn’t his usual kind of arrogance or flippant humor.  It was him when he didn’t want to talk about something.  I think he knew.  It – it would make certain things he sometimes said make much more sense.”

Sasuke stepped forward, shaking his head and frowning at Professor Lupin.  “He would have been an infant at most when he was removed from the village.”

Professor Lupin waved that idea away.  “No, I don’t mean like that.  I doubt he knew about this place.” He smiled suddenly and his whole face revitalized.  “This would have been too much of a temptation for his curiosity to resist.  If he had known this existed, he would have done anything necessary to find out the truth of it.  What I believe is that he knew he wasn’t from the same kind of old wizarding family that everyone knew and respected.  Times were different back then.  Even with everything that’s going on now, we’ve still made a great deal of progress in accepting those with different backgrounds.  But back then, it would have been hard for James to suspect something like that about himself.”

Harry frowned.  “It shouldn’t have mattered.”

Remus’s gripped his shoulder.  “I know.  But it did.  It would have.  Your father was a great man, but he was also a teenager at one point too, and prone to all the same insecurities and uncertainties that go with that age.  I don’t think it bothered him much, but if he had suspected, it was something he must have kept to himself.  At least, he never spoke of it directly to me.  Maybe he said something to Sirius,” he took a deep breath.  “They always had a different relationship than the rest of us.”

Harry had to look away.  He couldn’t think about Sirius and look at Professor Lupin.  There was too much sadness, too much anger, too much guilt.

“So do you believe us now?” Sasuke growled.

Harry’s head turned and he realized Sasuke was talking to him.  He flinched when he saw the way the other boy’s fists were clenched tight and the fierce look in his eyes.  He hadn’t meant for Sasuke to think otherwise, but it was clear now that his fumbled way of telling Professor Lupin made it sound terrible.  “I do.  I have,” he quickly reassured him.  With a bit of a blush he sighed and rubbed a hand across his face.  “I guess I’m just as bad at talking about it with others.”

Sasuke stared at him, judging, before finally looking away.  “As long as you understand,” he grumbled.

And Harry smiled slowly, hesitantly.  He might just be starting to get the hang of understanding Sasuke, because he could swear what mattered most to him wasn’t being right, but being recognized.  As family.

And wasn’t that a feeling enough to make a person feel light-headed.

 

* * *

 

Naruto held himself very still and projected as much professional shinobi as he could.  He was a very responsible adult now, representing his village during an important meeting.  He would not shout in delight.  Even when the two boneheads in his life seemed to be getting their act together.  Seriously.  Who knew Sasuke-teme could be so cute?  Granted, it was in his own grumpy, I’m-going-to-yell-at-you-because-I-care-about-you kind of way, but it still totally counted.

And, okay, maybe the smug grin was more than Naruto could hide.  This was so great.  Everybody was happy.  Sasuke and Harry were straightened out.  The Old Lady couldn’t be too mad since she arranged this little meeting.  And okay, maybe the ANBU were a little put out at someone addressing them, but it was also super funny how Sasuke had tried to describe them to his poor cousin.  Not quite the boogie-man persona they prefered.

And how great was it that Harry had other important people in his life?  And they got to meet them!  Sure, the guy looked like he could use a solid meal and maybe a place to crash for the night, but he also seemed very nice.  He was careful about everything he said to Harry and quick to reassure him.  And no one could have missed the look on his face when he first saw Harry.  There was a kind of relief there that only came from having lost so much but still having something left to lose.  Yes, all and all he seemed like a good person to be in Harry’s life.  Naruto approved.

“Alright!” Tsunade-ba-chan announced, slamming her palm once more on her desk to call everyone to order.  “Enough of this family drama.  There are still some questions that will be answered.”

Man, but the Old Lady could sound scary when she wanted to.  All three of the wizards visibly flinched and looked at her with trepidation.  “I’m sorry?” Harry tried.

Naruto snorted.

The Old Lady pointed one long finger at him.  “Uchiha-kun, stop groveling unless you know what the hell you’re apologizing for.  It’s a bad tactic and I won’t have it in my village.  Now.  Since we have established that these weird-o’s are in fact friends of yours, maybe they can shed some light on how a bunch of spineless foreigners keep invading my village!”

The older man stepped forward, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, looking harmless and calm.  “We followed Harry here, ma’am.”

Tsunade-ba-chan rolled her eyes.  “Yes, we figured that part out on our own, thanks.  How the hell did you do it?  The brat seemed to think that it shouldn’t have been possible.  Doesn’t have an explanation for it.  Which I believe, because he’s a shit liar.  But now you come wandering up to my gates, and I want some answers.”

The man shrugged slightly, a shy, sheepish expression on his face.  “I’m afraid it’s very complicated.”

“Oh, by all means,” Tsunade-ba-chan purred.  “Lay it on me.  I’m sure if I handle the problems caused by just the people I this room, I can deal with anything you dish out.”

The poor guy seemed a little flustered by that and Naruto could sympathized.  The Old Lady was a lot to take in, especially the first few times you met her.  Especially for guys.  “Yes, well,” he stalled before shaking his head.  “I’m more concerned that others might have arrived before us.  I don’t know how much Harry has explained, but these are very dangerous times.”

“Hm, yes,” Tsunade-ba-chan agreed pleasantly.  “I have the bodies in my morgue to show that.”

“Bodies?” he sharply asked.  He jerked around sharply to look at Harry but the first thing out of his mouth was “are you sure you are alright?  Harry, what happened?  Was it – ” his voice hushed, “followers of you-know-who?”  And Harry was right. It was ridiculous hearing a grown man whisper some stupid nickname like he was afraid someone would notice him.  For a man who had seemed so relaxed despite the precariousness of his current situation, he was clearly highly alarmed by something that was already in the past.

“Voldemort, right?” Naruto asked.  He didn’t like seeing people squirm because of a name and he wasn’t going to put up with it.  This Voldemort guy wanted to hurt Harry, so Team 7 was going to deal with him.  One way or another.

The two adults looked torn between shying away from the topic and demanding answers.  The lady with the crazy hair (and how cool was that?) was staring at him like he’d done something unheard of while the man turned to Harry, and in a voice even more faint, asked “how much did you tell them?”

No wonder the poor kid wasn’t comfortable talking about things.

And there went the Uchiha overprotective streak.  Sasuke took one step forward, as if he would like to put himself bodily between Harry and the others but was barely managing to restrain himself.  “He told us only the bare minimum considering I am responsible for keeping him safe.”

The man looked confused but tried to smile.  “That’s very kind of you, but – ”

“There are no limitations or qualifiers needed.  I am his cousin and I will protect him.  You have no right to withhold that information from me.”

“I’m sure Harry appreciates all of the support he can get, but you don’t understand the full risks involved.  We’re doing the best we can but you shouldn’t – ”

“Your best is not enough!” Sasuke yelled and Naruto’s shoulders hunched up.  Shit, but he hated it when Sasuke sounded like that.  He wanted to say something, support him somehow, but Sasuke barely even paused for a breath before erupting.  “He has nearly died three times since I found him.  There were no protections on the house he was in.  None!”

“That’s not – ”

“Itachi could have walked through that door unchallenged and your best would have been only good enough to find the bodies afterward.”

“No one who meant Harry harm could have entered that house!” the man replied, finally yelling himself and losing some of that sedated calm he seemed to constantly exist in.

“Wrong!  Wrong!  He was there and if we had been even a moment later, he would have finished what he started!  I am not going to lose what is left of my family!”

“Sasuke!” Harry interrupted.  And he didn’t even hesitate to move toward the other boy, to put his hands on Sasuke’s shoulders and to look him in the eye.  “It’s going to be okay!”

It was probably the closest the two of them had come to a hug and Naruto was almost teary-eyed just watching it.  Sasuke still looked like he’d like to rip the head off of someone, but he let his cousin stand close, endured the contact.  Maybe even leaned into it a little.  And everyone let them have their moment, which was good because Naruto might have had to punch a person if they interrupted.  This was an important bonding moment.  A turning point.  The kind of thing that was celebrated with ramen afterwards. 

“I’m sorry,” the old man said, and Naruto graciously decided to let the interruption slide since the guy really sounded like he meant it.  “I did not mean to belittle your concerns.  And you are correct, things are not perfect.  But we never would have left Harry with those people if there was any other option for keeping him safe.”

Harry had stepped back as soon as the conversation had continued, flushing red and straightening his hair as if he would like to hide behind it.  Sasuke didn’t move an inch and gave absolutely no indication that anything that had just happened was odd or overly sentimental.  The icy bastard. 

“He has options now,” Sasuke growled.  “Here.”

The man shook his head slowly and his voice was once more calm, but there was something more genuine in the way he spoke, as if he now welcomed their arguments instead of just explaining the way things were.  “The Dark Lord has already managed to follow Harry here.  Our – set-up – is better prepared to handle the kind of threat Death Eaters present.”

“I handled the threat just fine and have the bodies to prove it,” Sasuke snapped back. 

Harry’s eyes widened and he was already shaking his head as if he could stop Sasuke from saying such a thing.  It kind of definitively answered Harry’s question from last night.  Sasuke did know how to kill and had done so.  Without hesitation when it came to his family.  But Harry seemed less bothered by this fact and more bothered by Sasuke telling the others.  And it was clear why when the two wizards turned pale.  The man’s eyes darted back and forth between Team 7 and the older nin in the room as if he was waiting for someone to contradict Sasuke’s statement. 

No one did of course.  An angry Uchiha was a lethal thing.

Kakashi-sensei was his usual helpful self and smiled back brightly.  “My students are precocious.”

“But – they’re children!” the man gasped.

Which was sooo weird.  Sure, they were young.  Naruto got shit for that all the time, and he knew the others did too.  But that was only because they were badass for their age and no one expected it.  But they weren’t children!  They’d been out of the academy for years!  Naruto sputtered but Sakura poked him in the ribs to keep him quiet.

Kakashi-sensei managed to smile back even more obnoxiously.  “Very precocious.”

“Merlin!” the woman said.

Harry shifted so he was standing sideways, trying to face both groups and stuck in the middle.  “You were okay with DA club,” he argued.

“That was about self-defense.”

“So was this,” Harry stated flatly.  “They nearly killed Sasuke.”

And ooh, but did that make the teme scowl!  To have his prowess besmirched so!  It wasn’t funny, it really wasn’t according to Sakura and the way she stomped on Naruto’s foot to keep him from giggling.  Okay, it was totally hilarious, but Sasuke was smart enough to pick his battles and kept his mouth shut.

The man was studying Sasuke more thoroughly now and Naruto didn’t miss the way the vain idiot tried to look more impressive.  Like he was worried what this guy thought of him.  And Naruto supposed he probably was.  It was clear that Harry liked these people and valued their good opinion.

“Are you alright?” the man asked softly and it kind of shocked the hell out of everyone.  Well, all of the shinobi at least.  It wasn’t really something a stranger ever asked, certainly not and mean it the way this guy seemed to.

And was that the teme blushing, just a little?  “Fine,” he muttered.

Harry smiled suddenly.  “Sakura-chan healed him.  It was really impressive, Professor Lupin!  She checked my arm too and it wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as Madame Pomfrey’s diagnostic spells.  Not that they’re bad, but this was warm and relaxing and didn’t make my hair stand up on end.”

Harry’s teacher smiled back at him.  “I won’t tell Madame Pomfrey you said so,” he reassured.  But then he sighed and looked at the colorful woman, clearly asking about something but not saying a word.  She only shrugged in response, but her whole body relaxed with the gesture.  Her hands were in her pockets now, not held tensely at her sides, and she seemed smaller and younger and Naruto was kind of impressed at how subtle the transformation was from trained vigilance to nonchalance.  It reminded Naruto of Kakashi-sensei, actually.  He was so ridiculous most of the time, that it was hard to notice when he was serious.  And ooh, her hair was almost purple now, a duller more grey shade than the outfit she was wearing, but it was awesome watching it slowly fade from the original bright orange.  Very cool.

The teacher cleared his throat.  “We managed to find out that the Death Eaters were planning an attack,” he said carefully and there was obviously a whole hell of a lot more that he wasn’t saying.  “We knew it had to be directed at Harry.  We followed them here, but the process delayed our arrival.”

“Delayed,” Sasuke repeated and Naruto flinched a little at the tone.  He knew that voice.  It might sound level and flat to the rest of the world, but it was usually the sign that the teme was seriously pissed off.

“My, that’s very good information,” Kakashi-sensei drawled.  “For people who seem to not know much of anything.”

The guy didn’t even blink or flush.  “It wasn’t easy,” he said and stared back at Kakashi-sensei as if they were pleasantly discussing the weather.  It was so weird what bother him and what didn’t.  He loses his shit at the idea of Team 7 being good at their jobs but is cool as a cucumber at Kakashi-sensei mocking him. 

“Care to explain?” Kakashi-sensei drawled.  He didn’t have his stupid book out for once and was instead watching the teacher like he expected him to do something particularly interesting.  Which was weird and Naruto turned to study the man himself, squinting a little to try to figure out what could have caught his stupid teacher’s attention so thoroughly. 

“The Headmaster has many sources of information,” the man announced as if that was all he had to say on the matter.  And Harry-kun was nodding along as if that was all that was needed.  Whoever this Headmaster guy was, Harry obviously thought he was important.  Naruto tried to imagine a wizarding equivalent of the Hokage.

“Ah,” Kakashi-sensei said, the sound so soft that Naruto almost missed it.  It wasn’t a noise he was used to hearing out of his harebrained teacher, but then the dopey grin was back and the flippant tone of voice.  “Why, it’s almost like a little birdy told him,” he crooned.  “Or a greasy rat.  You know how these things go, never as hip as in the books.  Needs must make do with whatever crawls out of the cesspool”

All of which totally sounded like Kakashi-sensei going on another one of his weird pointless rambles, except all three of the wizards flinched like he’d insulted their mothers.  And, okay, so Naruto might be a bit clueless at times, but even he could figure out that Kakashi-sensei had struck some kind of nerve there.

“Not a rat, then?” Kakashi-sensei asked in mock surprise and complete unrepentedness. 

The professor looked like someone had sucker punched him and Naruto felt kind of bad for the guy.  He had been managing so well in the face of Kakashi-sensei’s inanity, but apparently the jounin did know how to break a person down.  How the hell he’d done it, Naruto wasn’t sure, but it was certainly effective.  The downside was Harry looked even worse.  His face went through a whirlwind of shock and grief and fierce hate.  It was dizzying just trying to keep up.  And the end result was Sasuke’s cousin looking like he would gladly like to kill someone – with no hesitation this time.  It made Naruto’s gut clench and he wasn’t the only one.  Sasuke’s eyes were dark and serious and as watchful as a hawk as he took in all of the subtle indications of a bigger problem.  But the teme was learning.  He kept his mouth shut. 

And put his hand, gently, on Harry’s elbow.  As if he was on a protection detail and preparing to escort the target somewhere else.  Somewhere safe.

It was creepily affectionate for the teme and it made Naruto kind of want to hug the shit out of him.

Kakashi-sensei’s visible eye flicked over in their direction, taking in the situation, but focused back on the two adults.  “Moi, maybe something else then,” he continued mercilessly.  “Something else sneaky and slimy and generally the kind of thing an oh-so-capable group like yourselves would like to keep secret.”

Harry’s teacher visibly took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment before exhaling.  When he no longer looked like he was in pain, he met Kakashi-sensei’s stare.  “If that were the case, then I am sure we would appreciate your understanding of the situation.”

“Oh, I understand,” Kakashi-sensei replied sounding gleeful.

“Don’t rub it in,” Tsunade-ba-chan ordered, but Naruto couldn’t be sure by her tone of voice if she was annoyed or entertained.  With the Old Lady, it was sometimes a toss-up.  “Well, then, now that we have established that no one knows anything about nothing, can we finish this up so I can get back to my real job?”

“Trying to drink all the sake in Konoha?” Naruto asked without hesitation.

She threw her paperweight at his head.  It hit the far wall instead and sunk about two inches into the woodwork.  The adult wizards flinched but Harry took it in stride.  Apparently he was starting to get the hang of things.  Maybe that meant he’d stop worrying he was going to get into trouble for breaking something.

“Uchiha!” she barked out and Sasuke twitched.

“Yes?” he muttered, turning to face her just barely enough not to be considered rude.

“How long will your guests be staying here?” Tsunade-ba-chan asked in a falsely sweet voice that made it clear his answer should be a good one, or else.

Sasuke shrugged.  “They are unnecessary,” he replied.  Naruto wanted to smack him and this time didn’t resist the urge.  The teme allowed it, mostly because he turned to hiss “what?” as if he truly didn’t understand.  When Naruto stared pointedly at Harry, Sasuke got the hint.  Harry-kun looked shocked and more than a little sad.  Sasuke scowled but he muttered “they can stay if you would like them to.”

It was very generous of the teme, since it would mean he would be responsible for them.  They would have to stay in the Uchiha compound.  They would have to be escorted at all times.  He would be responsible if anything went wrong.  But he didn’t hesitate.  So Naruto didn’t comment on his suspicions that despite having tried to pound it into Harry-kun’s head, it was possible that part of that shocked, hurt look was because he still considered himself one of the guests.  Naruto knew what it was like to always be looking in on other people’s happy groups and families.  Even when you did find your place with one, there was always that bit of hesitation and uncertainty left over.  Naruto was pretty good at not worrying about things like that ‘cause he was stubborn and determined and didn’t care what people thought.  But sometimes, some things, still caught him a little off-guard.  Things like an unexpected confirmation that he belonged now or the unexpected recognition of his hard work towards his goals.  So he could understand that feeling.  Which also meant he was the right person to fix it.  But later.  Sometime when everybody wasn’t watching and Sasuke wasn’t all tense and defensive.

“We shouldn’t stay long,” Harry’s teacher demurred.  “The others will be very anxious to see Harry.”

Oh, shit.

“Harry’s not going anywhere,” Sasuke growled.  He didn’t make a move, not yet, and Naruto hoped he wouldn’t get it into his head to do the equivalent of sitting on top of Harry-kun so he could go anywhere.  Because, frankly, Naruto wouldn’t put it past the emotionally stunted idiot to do something like that.

“The Uchiha’s are actually a really old family here,” Naruto tried desperately to defuse the brewing fight.  Maybe if they understood that despite Sasuke’s slight temper issues, he was actually very well-established member of the village….well, at least financially well-established and gainfully employed member.  Sasuke’s standing in the village was a little besmirched, but everybody seemed happy to have another Uchiha around – the point was, they could take care of Harry and once these people understood that they’d change their minds!

“This is not Harry’s home,” the man argued back, his voice more firm than it had been at any other point of the conversation.

“Now it is!”

“Sasuke,” Harry said quietly and it silenced the room.  “I have to go back to Hogwarts.” 

And just like that, things started to crumble around them.  For a moment, Sasuke looked as lost as Naruto had ever seen him.  They had known that adjusting to life in the village was going to be difficult for Harry, that he was going to miss things about his old life, but they all thought that they would have more time to show him how awesome it could be.  To solidify his bond with Sasuke and with the rest of them.  It was going to be so great, but they needed time!  And that opportunity was slipping through their fingers. 

Naruto opened his mouth to object, to argue, to rail against this fate and make Harry-kun see that what he needed was right here.  Then he saw the way the look on Sasuke’s face changed.  That vulnerable look slipped away, like the last bit of light.  But it wasn’t anger that took its place.  An angry teme was still manageable.  This was the cold, determined look that Sasuke only got when something was serious.  When he was prepared to do _anything_ to achieve his goal. 

That usually meant nothing good.

Naruto could picture it clearly.  Sasuke would make some threatening proclamation, that he’d probably mean more as a promise of commitment and less creepy as fuck, but Harry wasn’t going to take it that way.  Harry-kun would get all upset and angry back and then there’d be yelling.  Sasuke would freak when he realized that he didn’t have control of the situation.  And then he’d do something really stupid like get violent and somebody would get hurt and Harry-kun would never want to speak to them again.

Naruto _knew_ Sasuke and he liked to think he had a pretty good understanding of Harry.  So despite promising to let them work it out between themselves as much as possible, Naruto once more saved the teme from himself.

“Ne, ne, ne, Sasuke that works out perfectly, doesn’t it?” he cried out loudly, waving his arms a little before lacing his fingers behind his head and grinning at the whole room like it was a two-for-one day at Ikikaru’s.  He was loud and obnoxious and pretty much everything anyone had ever accused him of being and it worked like a charm.  The whole room stopped to stare.

Even Sasuke unbent enough to turn slowly and stare at him.  “What?”

Naruto kept his smile up but made sure the teme saw the look in his eyes.  “Well, we were just taking about how you wanted to make a visit to where Harry came from.”

Sasuke’s tone got darker.  “What?”  And boy, for a genius, Sasuke sure could be slow on the uptake sometimes.  Always so suspicious that everything was some kind of trap.

But Harry wasn’t even looking for one.  He was looking at Sasuke.  “You…want to come with me?” he asked.  He started to smile.

And Sasuke finally got a clue.  “Yes,” he said immediately.  The shinobi in the room politely ignored the slight hint of desperation in his voice.  Family was serious business, after all, and even an ice bastard like Sasuke was allowed some leeway when it came to acting like a properly stoic nin under such circumstances.

Now Harry’s teacher looked alarmed.  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,”

“I think it’s excellent!” Tsunade-ba-chan suddenly announced, clapping her hands once as if the matter was decided.  Her exuberant cheerful tone had all of the nin tensing in preparation for what was certain to be a one sided fight.  “Uchiha-kun speaks very highly of your academy.   And I’m sure these brats could use a little more schooling.”

Harry was smiling broadly now, seeming oblivious to the manipulation happening around him.  He just seemed happy at the idea of Sasuke coming with him.  He turned to his teacher, bubbling with excitement at the possibility.  “They’ve been showing me some of the ways they do magic, and it’s not the same, but I swear, Professor Lupin, there has to be some kind of similarity because I can feel it, it’s like when you have too much energy and you just want to go out somewhere and run because the energy feels like it’s going to burst through your skin!  I’ve got a million questions and I’m sure Hermonie can come up with even more, and Naruto loves magic, he thought it was so interesting when I showed him, I bet with a wand he could manage something.  And Sakura knows all kinds of ways to heal someone and that would be so useful for DA club and I want to show them Quidditch.”  He flushed at the end, falling silent as if he realized how eager he sounded.  But it didn’t surprise Naruto in the slightest.  This was the Harry he was getting used to.  Full of energy and ideas and interested in sharing what he had with everyone.

But Harry’s teacher was shaking his head slowly.  “Harry,” he said slowly.  “It is not as simple of a thing as that.  There are very special conditions – ”

“Oh, I’m sure these count!” Tsunade-ba-chan countered sweetly.  “After all, these are very special circumstances.”

The man shook his head wildly.  “I don’t have that kind of authority!”

“Well, then, I suggest you confer with who does,” the Old Lady replied, pouncing on the opening.  “In the meantime, Uchiha-kun can spend his time here.  Classes don’t start right away anyway, do they brat?  No?  Excellent then!  I’m sure the Uchihas would like to spend a little more time here together in the village.  And if our littlest Uchiha is interested in some extra lessons, then Team 7 can walk him through the basics.  I won’t have an important member of this village unable to defend himself adequately.  I’m sure you’ll agree that that’s important.  You do want to spend some time with your cousin, don’t you, Uchiha-kun?”

It wasn’t really a question, but Harry didn’t need to know that.

“I – I do like it here,” he said with a hesitant smile.  “And it’s not like I can go back to the Dursleys.”

“Over my dead body,” Sasuke muttered.

Harry laughed and smiled at him as if it was a good joke.  Then he looked back at his teacher.  “Right?” he asked.  “I mean, I won’t cause anyone trouble here.”

“You’re not trouble,” his teacher said firmly.  “You – you could come to Grimmauld Place.  There’s certainly plenty of room.”

But Harry-kun’s face paled at the idea and he shook his head quickly.  “I’d really rather not,” he said.  “I can’t – Not after everything.  Please, Professor, can’t I stay here?  Just for the summer!  I’ll be on the train and back in class, I promise.  Right, Sasuke?”

Sasuke, the sneaky bastard, just tilted his head in what could be called a nod and said nothing.

Harry’s teacher looked sad again, staring at Harry like he had hoped for something but wasn’t surprised to be disappointed.  “Are you sure, Harry?”

Harry nodded back solemnly. 

The man sighed.  “Okay.  I’ll try to sell it to the Headmaster.  I can’t guarantee that he’ll agree, he has much more to worry about than you or I, Harry.  But I at least agree, it might be for the best.”  He smiled a little.  “In times like these, we can use all of the friends we can get.”

“Yes!” Harry and Naruto both cried excitedly, one a little bit more loudly than the other.  Even Sasuke managed to not look constipated.

Harry looked back and forth between the Old Lady and Sasuke.  “Would it be okay if I showed them around town?  Before they go?  It’s so neat and Professor Lupin would love it, and Tonks, you have to see some of the people here!”

The Old Lady yawned, seemingly already bored with the whole proceedings.  “Fine, yes, whatever.  We need to write up some instructions for this Headmaster of yours.  After all, we can’t just send him four of our precious children without some guidelines about safety.”

“I’m sure you’re very concerned,” the man drawled, but no one was really listening any more.  Tsunade-ba-chan and Kakashi-sensei looked smug as hell.  Harry was all smiles and talking excitedly about where they should go first and how weird the village supposedly was.  Naruto grabbed one of Sakura’s hands and tugged her forward, his other arm reaching out to snag the teme around the shoulders and pull him in to crowd around Harry.

 “Come on,” Naruto told them.  “We gotta show ‘em how awesome Konoha is.”

The smile Harry gave them was almost sly, but he let himself be pulled into their chain.  Sakura looped her arm through his and Naruto dropped his now free one around Harry’s shoulders. 

“Just wait till you see Hogwarts.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Okay, so that ends Part II. There is a Part III. I have been working on it. Once I get a little further along, I'll start posting chapters here.
> 
> Thank you, as always, for sticking around this long. This story, and the positive reaction to it, is what keeps reminding me that I can do this writing thing.


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